In Philly and beyond, Black Friday has become "Black November"

The big picture: Black Friday is now "Black November," Sheri Lambert, a marketing professor at Temple University, tells Axios.

• It's part of a continuing trend of "holiday creep" that accelerated during the pandemic as retailers pushed more deals online well before Thanksgiving.
• The result: a monthlong sales cycle that blurs the lines between Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday.

State of play: Online shopping is projected to account for a quarter of the $1 trillion in U.S. holiday spending this year, per Adobe Analytics, with Cyber Monday ($14.2 billion) expected to outpace Black Friday ($11.7 billion).

• More people are using their phones rather than computers to buy gifts.
• Meanwhile, retailers are expected to hire between 265,000 and 365,000 seasonal workers this holiday season — down from 442,000 in 2024, per the National Retail Federation.
• Fewer in-store workers reflect fewer in-store shoppers.

Reality check: Labubus have replaced Furbies as the sought-after stuffed toy — but that's not all that has changed about holiday shopping in recent decades.

Flashback: Black Friday was once a madhouse: snaking lines of shoppers huddled in the cold outside malls and outlets for early-morning doorbuster deals, people clashing over the last 60-inch flatscreen TV at big-box retailers, and harried store clerks anxiously awaiting their next smoke break.

• In 2020, the pandemic limited in-person shopping, prompting many of the nation's biggest retailers to close stores on Thanksgiving — breaking with a long-running tradition of holding Black Friday sales on the holiday.
• That shift reset expectations for both shoppers and retailers.

Flash forward: Fanelli tells Axios the herds of shoppers have thinned in the decades she has gone Black Friday shopping, and that some malls even now resemble "ghost towns."

• She recalled department stores once handing out coupons to the first 200 people in line — but now fewer places offer exclusive in-store deals that aren't also available online.

What they're saying: "We'd buy so much that we would have to take turns making trips to the car to drop off our purchases," the 39-year-old teacher at Penn Wood High School tells Axios. "My dad would regularly get calls from the credit card company, thinking there was fraud happening."

Zoom in: While more Philadelphians are clicking "add to cart" from the comfort of their keyboards, Fanelli still carries on the family's shopping tradition.

• She keeps alive memories of cramming bananas in her mouth to hold her over until the family gathered at Bertucci's for pizza after a long day of shopping.

Reality check: "Brick-and-mortar [shopping] is not dying," Lambert says.

• It's evolving — and shoppers are leaning into experiences.

Zoom out: Some local malls and mom-and-pop shops have retained holiday shoppers by offering interactive experiences and hands-on help that other stores lack.

Case in point: King of Prussia Mall's store occupancy rate is 96% this year, and its new Netflix House is enticing people to shop IRL, mall spokesperson Todd Putt tells Axios.

• "Our biggest advantage is immediate gratification," he says.

Sophy Curson in Rittenhouse Square, a boutique women's clothing shop, rewards Philadelphians' desire to shop locally by curating clothing selections that can't be found online, third-generation owner David Schwartz tells Axios.

• "They come in when they need something specific," he says. "They're not just browsing the racks."

The bottom line: Yes, the world craves convenience, Fanelli says.

• But "how many families have traditions sitting around a computer to order presents?"