The aftermath

The aftermath

the real price of Cyber Monday and black Friday

Tami Lancut Leibovitz

In the U.S and Canada alone, over 3 Million people stayed home this last Monday and Friday, pretending to be sick, in order to engage in some of the biggest sales of the year – Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

In fact, Black Friday is longer the biggest sale day of the year, it’s officially Cyber Monday and the Tuesday after Cyber Monday – the numbers show double figures – almost 3 Billion Dollars spent on online shopping after Cyber Monday. Black Friday became the teaser to Cyber Monday, when people expect bigger and greater sales to appear on their laptop and mobile screen. Cyber Monday turned into a date consumers trust and look forward to.

When did it all start?

What was referred as the “Greatest epidemic of the year” in an ironic way, the Friday no one showed up to work after Thanks Giving, was coined to in the press as the Black Friday. Nowadays, employers try to avoid this “worthless” day of work and plenty of companies and bosses choose to allow their employees to take the day off and extend their time off well into a long Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

Retailers saw that day as a potential consumer-oriented day as early at the beginning of the century as it marked the unofficial beginning of the Christmas shopping season. As soon as Thanks Giving holiday parades had commercial sponsorships, there was no going back – those companies chose to highlight this Friday as a door-buster, a day dedicated to sales and spending – taking away from family values and adding value and capital to their brands and stores.

Cyber Monday emerged 12 years ago, On November 28, 2005 as a way for companies to create higher conversion for their online shopping and e-commerce platforms. The term’s credit is given to NFR experts Ellen Davis and Scott Silverman that launched what have now become the biggest online shopping day of the year.

Shopping by numbers on Cyber Monday and Black Friday

According to the National Retail Federation - NRF, 125 Million People in the U.S shopped in Cyber Monday sales (Compared to Black Friday shoppers – online and offline that amounted to 116 million who shoppers) $2.9 billion were spent in online sales, double what people spent online on Thanksgiving ($1.4 billion), Black Friday ($1.97 billion) and both the Saturday and Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend combined ($2.5 billion) Interesting to learn that not all sales were Christmas-related, may shopped for themselves and waited to buy an item they eyed for a whole season.

Cost and effect for us consumers

Banks enjoy the high debt people get into with higher interest rates on credit cards, loans and payment plans but consumers should prioritize their payments according to the highest interest debt. The worst people do is go into overdraft because of overspending, a thing that can seriously hurt their credit score and affect more than just the current month or season. Binging into Cyber Monday deals can hurt the market and effect retail stores, malls, and physical locations due to lack of spending money people end up with in the end of the cyber Monday madness.

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