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Every retail IT leader knows that a mix of anticipation, cautious relief, and low-grade paranoia the week before the holiday freeze. Change requests stack up. Teams push last-minute updates to servers, registers, and store systems. And somewhere across hundreds or thousands of locations, one system has drifted slightly out of compliance. Nobody notices until peak traffic arrives. Then a lane goes down, a register stops processing transactions, checkout slows, and revenue starts walking out the door.

Wondering what the big deal is with Black Friday? And why does every business on earth seem to be obsessed with the quasi-holiday? Or are you just looking for great deals? Black Friday has become a sort of global cultural institution. Everyone knows about it, some look forward to it, and a few go crazy for the big day. It may be hard to believe, but Black Friday hasn't always been a thing, and it's actually a relatively recent development.