WEBVTT - The History of Cyber Monday 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:14.360 Stuff Works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:17.800 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer and 0:00:17.840 --> 0:00:21.439 I love all things tech, and today I thought i'd 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:24.000 change things up a bit and talk about the history 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:29.160 and evolution of cyber Monday. So where did this come from? 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:32.960 And are the deals on cyber Monday really great? And 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:36.120 I guess the answer to that second question is essentially, uh, 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:39.680 it depends. But first let's talk about some history. So 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:44.960 before there was cyber Monday, there was Black Friday, both 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:47.000 in the sense that Black Friday as a thing is 0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:50.640 older than cyber Monday, and also cyber Monday is the 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:54.280 Monday that follows Black Friday, so technically it's true in 0:00:54.360 --> 0:00:57.400 two different senses. All right, So what is Black Friday? 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:00.720 One of the United States, Black Friday is the friday 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:04.240 following Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving in the United States falls on the 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:08.240 fourth Thursday of November, at least it has ever since 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:12.479 nineteen thirty nine, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt moved the holiday 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:16.240 up a week from the final Thursday of November. Now, 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:20.360 since November two thousand eighteen, started on a Thursday. November 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:23.399 one was a Thursday. That means that two thousand eighteen 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:26.959 will see Thanksgiving fall as early as it can, which 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:30.960 means November. The latest it can fall in the month 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:36.080 is November. Anyway, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving 0:01:36.120 --> 0:01:40.840 in the United States. Now, there is an apocryphal story 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:44.959 that says the origins of Black Friday are deeply racist 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:48.800 and tied to the United States history with slavery. According 0:01:48.840 --> 0:01:52.320 to that story, slave traders would sell slaves at a 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:56.680 discount on the day after Thanksgiving to help plantation owners 0:01:56.720 --> 0:01:59.360 who are going to want to purchase more slaves to 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:03.800 do work leading up to the winter. That's a horrible, 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:09.160 horrible thing. But the story isn't true at all. And honestly, 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:12.080 I find it hard to believe that slave traders would 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:15.560 respond to an increase in demand by lowering their prices. 0:02:15.600 --> 0:02:19.840 They already seem like terrible, terrible human beings. I don't 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:23.840 think of them as being particularly altruistic. However, we can 0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:27.320 put that whole explanation aside. Anyway, If anyone tells you 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:31.080 Black Friday is based in slavery, that is not true. 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:33.960 The term Black Friday in relation to the day after 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:38.640 Thanksgiving did not appear in print until the nineteen fifties. 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:42.320 As far as we can determine. There was, however, an 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:45.919 earlier version of Black Friday, though that was not the 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:49.880 day after Thanksgiving. That Black Friday wasn't associated with a 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:52.960 holiday at all, but rather with a stock market crash 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:57.720 that happened on Friday, September twenty four, eighteen sixty nine. 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:00.760 The cause of that crash was that there were two 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:06.440 speculators named Jay Gould and James Fisk, and together they 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:10.360 were able to drive up gold prices way way up 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:13.240 while they were trying to corner the market on gold 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:17.119 on the New York Gold Exchange. They had even planted 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:21.679 a story to convince US President Ulysses S. Grant to 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:25.880 stop gold sales. They had this report that it was 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:30.120 going to hurt farmers out west. Meanwhile, they bought up 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:33.440 as much gold as they could, and that raised gold 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:35.600 prices as a result. So they thought they were gonna 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:37.600 be rich. They're gonna buy up the gold and then 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:41.320 they could sell it off at these elevated prices. However, 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:44.080 President Grant found out about it, and he ordered the 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:47.400 release of millions of dollars of gold to be made 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:51.440 available on the market, and that caused prices to crash. 0:03:51.560 --> 0:03:55.560 Suddenly there was way more supply, and this crash ended 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:59.240 up affecting the stock market as well. However, this was 0:03:59.280 --> 0:04:02.960 a moment of acute pain. It was a sharp depth 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:07.000 in the stock market, thus the name Black Friday, but 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:09.840 in the long termment that the nation was actually able 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:13.720 to avoid a more persistent depression, so it ended up 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:17.080 turning out better than it otherwise would have. The earliest 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:20.320 known reference to the day after thanks Giving being Black 0:04:20.360 --> 0:04:25.160 Friday dates to nineteen fifty one from a periodical titled 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:30.600 Factory Management and Maintenance. But it was a real page turner. 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:35.320 But in that article, the author was describing this tendency 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:39.360 for workers to call in sick the day after Thanksgiving, 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:41.960 and really they were just trying to make a long 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:45.360 weekend out of the holiday because at that time it 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:49.080 was not commonplace for most businesses to close down on 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:53.920 both Thursday, the day of Thanksgiving, and Friday. So this 0:04:53.960 --> 0:04:58.600 piece was sort of sardonically comparing the malaise being felt 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:01.880 by workers across the nation and to the bubonic plague 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:05.880 also known as the Black Death. Everyone would just mysteriously 0:05:06.040 --> 0:05:09.719 be sick that Friday and not show up to work. 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:13.240 It would take another decade before we would see the 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:18.360 name Black Friday associated with shopping for the day after Thanksgiving. 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:22.799 This would come out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The local police 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:26.560 force there would refer to that Friday and that Saturday 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:30.440 following Thanksgiving US both Black Friday and Black Saturday. This 0:05:30.520 --> 0:05:33.960 was because those two days had become the busiest shopping 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:37.880 days of the year. Thanksgiving leads into the holiday season, 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:41.920 and in post World War two America, the holiday season 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:46.280 was beginning to be associated and has been since with 0:05:46.480 --> 0:05:50.520 lots of material gifts. Consumerism was on the rise. A 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:54.000 lot of people had a lot more discretionary income and 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:56.960 a desire to spend it. So the police referred to 0:05:57.040 --> 0:06:01.000 Friday and Saturday as Black Friday and blacks Saturday because 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:04.640 of the headaches that came along with all that busy shopping, 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:09.080 mostly in the form of stuff like traffic problems and shoplifting. 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:13.000 Plus the fact that this rise in activity meant it 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:16.159 was virtually impossible to get the day off if you 0:06:16.200 --> 0:06:19.000 were a Philadelphia cop, and you would probably have to 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:22.760 put in an extra long shift to boot. So they 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:26.120 didn't really like it now. In the nineteen eighties, a 0:06:26.279 --> 0:06:30.000 new version of the history of Black Friday popped up, 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:34.279 and this version claimed that the name Black Friday stemmed 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:37.359 from the fact that it was on that day that 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:41.680 many merchants would finally see their annual figures show a profit. 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:45.920 The idea was that the enormous amount of business on 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:49.520 that Friday would take businesses from operating at a loss 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:53.279 or operating in the red in other words, and push 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:57.479 them towards profitability or operating in the black. Thus, black 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:00.960 Friday now that refers to the practice of noting losses 0:07:01.120 --> 0:07:04.839 or negative numbers in a ledger using red ink and 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:09.320 positive numbers using black ink. And while that's a cute story, 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:13.760 it's not, you know, real. In fact, a lot of 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:17.840 stores see more sales on the Saturday before Christmas because 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:24.560 lots of Americans are procrastinators. But this fictional history of 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:28.240 the origin of Black Friday took hold in the American psyche, 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:31.760 and to go along with it, stores began holding big 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:35.760 sales to bring more and more shoppers into their stores. 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:39.440 And this strategy worked, and every year we would see 0:07:39.840 --> 0:07:42.800 more efforts to make it even bigger, with stuff like 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:47.600 door buster offers, so called because those sales offer seemingly 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:52.600 huge discounts right at opening hours and are typically those 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:57.280 those figures, those those amounts, those discounts are only available 0:07:57.400 --> 0:08:00.400 for a very short time, or the inventor or for 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:03.120 those products is so small that the store will no 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:06.640 doubt sell out within minutes of opening, or both in 0:08:06.680 --> 0:08:10.720 many cases. So often these sales are tied to an 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:14.360 effort to move older merchandise out of stores to make 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:18.080 way for newer products. So stuff like electronics, particularly big 0:08:18.120 --> 0:08:22.160 ticket items like televisions or small appliances, tend to take 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:25.200 up some space, and manufacturers want to come out with 0:08:25.240 --> 0:08:29.560 new models every year, and according to uh Adam Burakowski 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:34.400 of Wirecutter, large appliances are kind of a an exception. 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:38.240 You rarely see big, significant markdowns on large appliances, but 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:41.640 small appliances and televisions, which can get pretty darn big 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:44.600 these days, they can get marked off quite a bit, 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:47.480 and mostly in order to make room for new models. 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:50.240 Black Friday opened up a chance for stores to offload 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:53.880 older stuff, perhaps at a discount, after sales had slowed 0:08:53.880 --> 0:08:57.839 down considerably. So by the nineteen eighties, Black Friday was 0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:01.880 established as the formal beginning of the holiday shopping season, 0:09:02.080 --> 0:09:06.760 and while some online service providers like compu Serve would 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:10.360 introduce online shopping in the nineteen eighties, it was a 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:14.440 far distant second to shopping in physical stores. It had 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:19.960 barely registered. It really wasn't until the mid nineteen nineties 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:24.000 when Netscape one point oh incorporated the Secure Socket Layer 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:29.080 Protocol the SSL protocol. That's when online transactions could be 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:32.800 considered truly secure for the first time. That led to 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:36.760 the possibility of turning the Internet, and specifically the Web, 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:42.080 into a commerce destination. Sites like Amazon and eBay helped 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:45.960 usher in a new era of commerce, making it practical 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:50.199 and then desirable to shop online. While those two sites 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:52.920 saw a lot of success, the early days of e 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:56.160 commerce also saw a lot of businesses rush into that 0:09:56.240 --> 0:09:59.880 space without really forming a strategy around it. After the 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:02.679 dust would settle in the wake of the dot com 0:10:02.760 --> 0:10:05.920 bubble implosion in the early two thousands, companies began to 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:08.520 take a more measured approach and e commerce started to 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:11.960 come into its own. In two thousand five, a marketing 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:15.840 team led by Ellen Davis at a company called shop 0:10:15.880 --> 0:10:20.440 dot Org introduced the concept of cyber Monday. This would 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:24.680 be e commerce's response to Black Friday, the sales pitch 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:27.920 road itself. Why would you leave your comfortable home and 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:32.920 brave potentially bad weather and guaranteed terrible traffic to fight 0:10:33.000 --> 0:10:35.520 your way into a store only to find out that 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:38.760 the thing you wanted to buy has already sold out. 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:44.280 Why risk getting hurt or worse as single minded consumers 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:48.040 shove and elbow and kick their way to get the 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:51.760 last tickle me Elmo doll or whatever must have item 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:54.840 happened to be on sale that year. Why not instead 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:59.600 sit at home and order your holiday gifts online and 0:10:59.679 --> 0:11:03.280 have them either delivered to you or even to the 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:05.880 people you plan to give gifts to. You take out 0:11:05.920 --> 0:11:08.040 the whole step of having to take the gifts to 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:12.800 the people. Cyber Monday was born. I'll explain more in 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:16.120 just a moment, but first let's take a quick break 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:27.079 to thank our sponsor. Now, the concept of cyber Monday 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:30.440 didn't just arrive out of the blue. For a few 0:11:30.520 --> 0:11:34.439 years leading up to two thousand five, analysts had seen 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:39.319 a boost and online line sales on the Monday following 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:43.480 Black Friday. They had seen this trend happening, So maybe 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:46.160 some people were late to the game and they weren't 0:11:46.160 --> 0:11:48.640 able to land a deal on Black Friday. Maybe some 0:11:48.679 --> 0:11:51.520 of them weren't able to get hold of that must 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:54.320 have item in a physical store, so now they were 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:57.840 looking online. But whatever the reason, by two thousand five, 0:11:58.160 --> 0:12:01.360 Cyber Monday was one of the big easier online shopping 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:04.760 days of the year, but not the busiest, in fact, 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:07.679 not even in the top ten. By two thousand five, 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:11.160 it was more like the twelfth most popular shopping day 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:15.720 online at that point. But the Cyber Monday marketing idea 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:19.720 would change that. So the media, here's about this idea 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:23.320 in two thousand five, and they jump all over this 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:28.040 concept of Cyber Monday. And this is no surprise. News 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:31.840 about sales tends to get a lot of attention, whether 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:36.320 it's in print, audio, or television spots. You've probably seen 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:40.360 countless articles and videos that lists the biggest Black Friday 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:43.760 or Cyber Monday deals. There's a whole industry around this. 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:47.600 There are groups that start putting out information about it 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:51.480 before November even starts, to talk about the big Black 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:54.440 Friday or Cyber Monday deals that are coming down the line. 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:59.319 So media outlets were highly motivated to take this new 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:03.280 concept and to run with it. Online retailers would get 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:07.280 on board too, because the media coverage amounted to free publicity, 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:10.600 and they started to see their sales increase. So two 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:14.040 thousand five was a good start. Analysts estimated the online 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:17.679 retailers saw about four d eighty four million dollars in 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:22.720 sales collectively on that Monday that year. But the retailers 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:25.360 would prepare themselves to really push for it in a 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:29.800 big way in the years to follow. By creating promotions 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:34.439 and sales tied to this concept of cyber Monday, they 0:13:34.440 --> 0:13:40.199 could actually increase sales dramatically over a typical shopping day online. 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:45.480 In two thousand and six, CNN ran a story that 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:49.880 pointed out that certain sought after items were being really 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:53.679 scarce in brick and mortar stores but were available online. 0:13:54.040 --> 0:13:59.200 The article had the title for e tailors, It's Cyber Monday, 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:02.000 and it had a ub headline that said traffic tracking 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:06.840 services showed a fifty increase in Internet traffic at various 0:14:06.920 --> 0:14:10.880 online commerce sites on that Monday. The sought after items 0:14:10.880 --> 0:14:15.239 included stuff like the PlayStation three gaming console from Sony, 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:20.800 Nintendo's we gaming console, and the aforementioned Elmo. Though this 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:24.080 one was the Tickle Me Elmo t m X. And 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:26.960 by the way, just as a side note, I actually 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:31.000 watched a video of that Elmo toy for this podcast 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:34.800 because I'm nothing if not thorough in my research, and 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:36.920 I didn't remember this toy. That's why I was like, 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:39.640 what is the tickle me Elmo t MX? How is 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:41.840 that different from the tickle Me Elmo, which was a 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:45.800 doll that would laugh and vibrate like crazy whenever you 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:51.000 activated it. So in the video, I saw Elmo as 0:14:51.080 --> 0:14:54.880 a toy that could stand up is actually standing, and 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:57.800 you would activate it by pressing certain points on the 0:14:57.880 --> 0:15:00.680 doll and it would start to laugh and it moves 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:03.840 its arms, and eventually it bends over like it's laughing 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:06.280 so hard it can't stand up straight. It falls over 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:08.880 onto the ground, and then ultimately at the end of 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:11.760 this it stands itself back up. The best part about 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:15.080 this story is while I was watching this, my coworker 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:17.880 Noel Brown, who's one of the hosts of Ridiculous History, 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:20.200 walked up behind me and he asked me what the 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:23.080 heck was I watching? Although he didn't use those words 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:25.960 he he was a bit more coarse in his language, 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:29.520 but Upon explaining it, he shook his head and walked away. 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:31.920 That's the typical response I get here at the office. 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:35.320 In two thousand seven, online sales were up to seven 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:40.600 hundred thirty million dollars. Then, in December two thousand seven, 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:44.520 the United States entered what was later called the Great Recession. 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:48.400 This was when the real estate market collapsed, which in 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:52.280 turn made mortgage backed securities issued by banks to fall 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:55.960 in value dramatically, and that in turn threatened the solvency 0:15:56.000 --> 0:16:00.160 of various financial institutions like those banks, that led to 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:03.800 the government bailouts, and banks and businesses began laying off 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:07.720 workers and eliminating jobs. It doubled the unemployment rate in 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:11.480 the United States until it hit ten. Now. The reason 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:17.320 I mentioned all of that is because, despite this economic downturn, 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:21.880 online retailers would see a year over year increase in 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:24.840 sales from two thousand seven to two thousand eight two 0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:29.560 thousand seven seven thirty million dollars two thousand eight, eight 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:34.320 hundred forty six million dollars despite the economic downturn. Now, 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:38.200 one possible reason for the higher number is that people 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:40.520 weren't just looking for a good deal in two thousand eight. 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:44.120 They needed good deals. People still wanted to buy presents 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:47.480 for friends and family, but money was tight, so sales 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:50.600 were more important than ever, and online seemed to give 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:55.560 the biggest access to those sales. The holiday season in 0:16:55.560 --> 0:16:58.920 two thousand eight also saw a rising battle between traditional 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:03.960 retailer walm Art an online giant Amazon. Amazon would take 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:08.359 the number one spot according to traffic tracking services, with 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:13.719 an increase of twenty one percent more traffic year over year. Walmart, 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:18.760 by comparison, only saw a six percent increase. More importantly, 0:17:18.880 --> 0:17:22.879 for Amazon, it became the most popular online destination for 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:27.080 commerce on Cyber Monday. In two thousand nine, comm Score, 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:29.879 which is a data analysis firm, published a report that 0:17:29.960 --> 0:17:33.520 said forty one point six percent of all online shoppers 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:36.879 were logging in from home, but fifty two point nine 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:40.920 percent were logging in from work. So maybe that don't 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:45.080 want to go to work itis bubonic plague that prompted 0:17:45.160 --> 0:17:49.080 that initial article that gave us the term Black Friday 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:52.879 for the day after Thanksgiving, maybe that now extends to 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:56.639 everyone on the following Monday. They might be at work, 0:17:56.760 --> 0:17:59.760 but instead of actually working, they could be scouring the 0:17:59.840 --> 0:18:03.239 internet for the best deals in lowest prices. Same as 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:07.320 it ever was. I guess Walmart would strike back against 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:11.400 Amazon in two thousand nine when when it announced cyber 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:16.520 Week and set the chorus for things as they are now. 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:20.440 This extended the sales that Walmart was showing off for 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:24.760 a full week following Thanksgiving. That would prompt other retailers 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:28.960 to follow suit in and would also be when Cyber 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:32.840 Monday would become the busiest online shopping day of the year, 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:36.240 and it's been that way ever since. Was also the 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:41.359 first year that Cyber Monday sales would top one billion dollars. 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:44.680 But just to put things into perspective, that same year 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:48.399 saw shoppers visit real world stores to the tune of 0:18:48.520 --> 0:18:53.520 ten point seven billion dollars in sales, So Cyber Monday 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:55.800 was a big success, but it was still trailing far 0:18:55.880 --> 0:19:00.840 behind Black Friday and traditional stores. The next year in 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:06.679 CNBC rather predictably reported that Black Friday and Cyber Monday 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:11.720 had effectively gloamed together to create this mutated beast of 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:15.040 a long shopping weekend, and we were starting to see 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:19.119 sales extend further out in both directions from Black Friday. 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:22.000 While this also had the effect of cannibalizing some of 0:19:22.040 --> 0:19:26.119 the sales on Friday and Monday themselves. Ultimately, I'm pretty 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:29.640 sure merchants don't really care when they're selling stuff. They 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:32.040 just care if they are selling it and how much 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:35.320 they're able to sell. In two thousand twelve, we would 0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:38.879 see another shift in consumer behavior, one that would shape 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:44.159 the way retailers would target customers. More shoppers, nearly twenty 0:19:44.240 --> 0:19:47.359 percent of them, began to use smartphones to look at 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:51.040 cyber deals. This was a twelve increase from the previous 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:55.320 year and also an indication that mobile browsing was the future. 0:19:55.600 --> 0:19:58.520 And this, by the way, was something the entire online 0:19:58.640 --> 0:20:01.960 content world was star to realize. Right around this point, 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:05.600 anyone who worked in that world, such as yours truly 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:09.159 was starting to think about ways to optimize content for 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:12.840 the mobile experience. It was clear that companies that could 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:15.800 make their online experience a positive one, no matter what 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:18.679 sort of the device someone might use to access it, 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:21.600 would be well ahead of the game. That included e 0:20:21.760 --> 0:20:25.080 commerce sites, which began to invest more money in creating 0:20:25.160 --> 0:20:29.960 user interfaces for their stores, specifically for smartphones. In all, 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:34.960 consumers spent one point four six five billion dollars in 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:39.880 online shopping on cyber Monday. In two thousand twelve, electronics, 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:43.760 computer hardware, and video games all experienced huge jumps in 0:20:43.880 --> 0:20:48.080 sales gains year over year, but the top performing category 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:52.359 according to com Score, was in digital content and subscriptions. 0:20:52.840 --> 0:20:55.880 Also by two thousand twelve, there was a pretty much 0:20:55.920 --> 0:20:58.920 even split between people buying stuff while surfing the web 0:20:58.960 --> 0:21:01.200 from home and those who were still on the clock 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:04.879 at work. In two thousand thirteen, fashion websites began to 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:08.639 finally get in on this Cyber Monday game. Clothing retailers 0:21:08.680 --> 0:21:12.320 like Old Navy started to launch their own Cyber Monday deals, 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:16.000 taking advantage of the same shopping frenzy as other retailers. 0:21:16.240 --> 0:21:19.119 And this actually reminds us that one of the values 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:21.960 of these days, both Black Friday and of Cyber Monday, 0:21:22.040 --> 0:21:25.000 to retailers, in large part is due to the fact 0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:28.879 that we as consumers have been conditioned to shop on 0:21:28.920 --> 0:21:32.680 those days. So many people are already in a mindset 0:21:33.040 --> 0:21:35.480 to go out there and get ready to buy stuff, 0:21:35.800 --> 0:21:39.280 and by leveraging that from the retail side and pairing 0:21:39.320 --> 0:21:41.359 a good deal or two to take advantage of it 0:21:41.400 --> 0:21:45.000 wherever you can, just makes really good business sense. In 0:21:45.080 --> 0:21:48.239 two thousand fifteen, Target announced it was offering up a 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:51.639 fifteen percent discount across all of Target dot Com for 0:21:51.760 --> 0:21:55.840 Cyber Monday, showing that the big retail businesses were really 0:21:55.880 --> 0:21:59.879 playing serious at this point and in ten things would 0:22:00.080 --> 0:22:03.160 really go crazy as the concept of cyber Week took 0:22:03.200 --> 0:22:06.560 hold for more retailers. I'll explain more in just a moment, 0:22:06.600 --> 0:22:09.280 but first let's take another quick break to thank our 0:22:09.320 --> 0:22:22.480 sponsor so In. According to com Score, retailers saw eleven 0:22:22.720 --> 0:22:27.159 billion dollars in sales during cyber Week. Now that started 0:22:27.200 --> 0:22:31.720 on Monday, November and it ended on December four. Cyber 0:22:31.760 --> 0:22:35.600 Monday itself accounted for nearly two point seven billion dollars 0:22:35.600 --> 0:22:38.919 in sales all alone. And not only that, but starting 0:22:38.920 --> 0:22:43.400 on Thanksgiving Day, e commerce sites collectively saw more than 0:22:43.480 --> 0:22:49.240 one billion dollars of sales every day for eleven days straight. 0:22:49.720 --> 0:22:53.199 It drove the holiday season sales, which comm Scored defined 0:22:53.200 --> 0:22:56.360 as starting on November one and ending on December four, 0:22:56.800 --> 0:23:02.160 to achieve nearly thirty eight billion dollars in sales. That's 0:23:02.320 --> 0:23:07.160 a ton of money. Also, in twenty six one two 0:23:07.200 --> 0:23:10.920 million people in the United States did some online shopping 0:23:11.000 --> 0:23:14.880 on Cyber Monday, but on Black Friday, only one hundred 0:23:15.000 --> 0:23:19.720 sixteen million Americans did any shopping, and that includes sixty 0:23:19.720 --> 0:23:22.920 seven point nine million people who were doing online shopping. 0:23:23.000 --> 0:23:27.679 So in twenty sixteen, cyber Monday pulled ahead of Black 0:23:27.800 --> 0:23:31.680 Friday as the busiest shopping day in the United States 0:23:31.960 --> 0:23:34.199 and all without having to line up in front of 0:23:34.200 --> 0:23:38.399 a store at three in the morning. In comm Score 0:23:38.440 --> 0:23:43.600 reported that consumers spent three point three six billion dollars 0:23:43.640 --> 0:23:49.720 on Cyber Monday from desktop computers, so just from desktops. 0:23:49.760 --> 0:23:53.640 According to the Verge, purchases made from mobile devices accounted 0:23:53.640 --> 0:23:56.960 for another two billion dollars in sales. And according to 0:23:57.040 --> 0:23:59.720 multiple sources, although this doesn't really match up with the 0:23:59.720 --> 0:24:04.359 comm score numbers, the collective cyber Monday sales efforts in 0:24:04.440 --> 0:24:11.080 tweventeen amounted to six point five nine billion dollars in sales. Now, 0:24:11.160 --> 0:24:13.840 if you look at the sales figures from Thanksgiving through 0:24:13.960 --> 0:24:18.280 Cyber Monday, online sales amounted to nineteen point six to 0:24:18.480 --> 0:24:23.760 billion dollars, truly an enormous sum of money now. According 0:24:23.760 --> 0:24:27.520 to a survey from National Retail Federation as well as 0:24:27.520 --> 0:24:30.840 a company called Prosper Insights and Analytics that partnered to 0:24:31.040 --> 0:24:35.479 make this survey, fifty eight million Americans chose to do 0:24:35.520 --> 0:24:40.280 their holiday shopping online, only fifty one million chose to 0:24:40.320 --> 0:24:44.359 shop only at physical stores, and more than sixty four 0:24:44.400 --> 0:24:48.200 million Americans did some combination of the two. So while 0:24:48.240 --> 0:24:52.439 online shopping has definitely pulled ahead of going to actual 0:24:52.480 --> 0:24:56.000 brick and mortar stores, there's still a place for those 0:24:56.080 --> 0:25:00.479 physical shops. They are not obsolete. People are still shopping 0:25:00.480 --> 0:25:04.760 there and droves, just they're doing it more online. The 0:25:04.800 --> 0:25:08.000 Wall Street Journal reported that brick and mortar stores did 0:25:08.040 --> 0:25:10.800 see a decrease of about four percent in the number 0:25:10.840 --> 0:25:15.000 of people visiting those stores in compared to the same 0:25:15.040 --> 0:25:19.199 time in so we are seeing fewer people going to 0:25:19.280 --> 0:25:21.720 these stores. It's not quite to the point where I 0:25:21.760 --> 0:25:24.240 would want to try and go out on Black Friday. 0:25:24.440 --> 0:25:26.480 I think there's still way too many people out there, 0:25:26.960 --> 0:25:29.600 but we're getting there now. There is a growing concern 0:25:30.040 --> 0:25:33.359 that by extending these deals out from Black Friday and 0:25:33.440 --> 0:25:36.680 Cyber Monday, the whole Cyber week thing, and the Black 0:25:36.680 --> 0:25:40.360 Friday sales that start two weeks before Thanksgiving, that these 0:25:40.400 --> 0:25:43.120 sales are going to lose their luster. And again, part 0:25:43.160 --> 0:25:47.920 of what drives so much sales activity are the limitations 0:25:47.960 --> 0:25:51.240 around the sales dates. If you make items available only 0:25:51.280 --> 0:25:54.440