I've heard that explanation plenty of times, too. Recently I read that data from retail organizations do not support that explanation and never have. Plus, retailers don't even track profit and loss in that fashion. They don't track revenues YTD and compare them against full-year costs including costs not yet incurred. That doesn't even make sense. Meanwhile, there is evidence that the police department in Philadelphia (the city cited in an article I read) called it Black Friday because of the extra staffing needed to deal with increased traffic, crowds, and petty crime. The story about retailers swinging to profit was ginned up as a more palatable public explanation.