WEBVTT - Rerun: The History of Cyber Monday 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:14.720 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:17.720 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:19.880 and I love all things tech. And here in the 0:00:19.960 --> 0:00:23.480 United States it is Thanksgiving, which means we here at 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:27.319 tech Stuff are currently on holiday. I don't know about Torii, 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:29.880 but my guess is by the time you're listening to this, 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:34.280 I am stuffing my face with festive foods and uh. 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:36.879 Because I don't want to leave you without an episode, 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:39.520 I thought we would rerun an episode from a couple 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:41.120 of years ago. I think this is going to be 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:45.560 an annual tradition about the history of Cyber Monday, because 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:48.919 here in the US, the day after Thanksgiving is typically 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:53.840 called Black Friday. That is a day when stores are 0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:57.320 offering tons of different sales in order to attract people 0:00:57.400 --> 0:01:01.320 to come in and buy tons of stuff. It's timed 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:03.400 so that you know it's it's right at the beginning 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:06.240 of the holiday shopping season, so people are trying to 0:01:06.280 --> 0:01:09.520 get their gifts all in order for their loved ones. 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:13.680 But Cyber Monday grew out a few well many years 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:19.080 later down the road, and this episode goes into its history. 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:23.199 So I hope you enjoy this episode about cyber Monday, 0:01:23.319 --> 0:01:26.400 and you know to keep a lookout for deals because 0:01:27.080 --> 0:01:29.720 they do pop up around this time of year. And 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:32.200 I'll be back to talk with you again in a 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:36.920 little bit today. I thought i'd changed things up a 0:01:36.920 --> 0:01:41.200 bit and talk about the history and evolution of cyber Monday. 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:45.120 So where did this come from? And are the deals 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:48.240 on cyber Monday really great? And I guess the answer 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:52.000 to that second question is essentially, uh, it depends. But 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:55.760 first let's talk about some history. So before there was 0:01:55.800 --> 0:01:59.960 cyber Monday, there was Black Friday, both in the sense 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:03.200 that Black Friday is a thing is older than Cyber Monday, 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:07.040 and also cyber Monday is the Monday that follows Black Friday, 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:10.840 so technically it's true in two different senses. All right, 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:13.120 So what is Black Friday? One of the United States, 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:17.520 Black Friday is the friday following Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving in the 0:02:17.600 --> 0:02:21.360 United States falls on the fourth Thursday of November, at 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:24.880 least it has ever since nineteen thirty nine, when Franklin 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:28.240 Delano Roosevelt moved the holiday up a week from the 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:32.360 final Thursday of November. Now, since November two thousand eighteen 0:02:32.480 --> 0:02:36.240 started on a Thursday. November one was a Thursday. That 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:39.560 means that two thousand eighteen will see Thanksgiving fall as 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:44.120 early as it can, which means November two. The latest 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:48.200 it can fall in the month is November. Anyway, Black 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:51.919 Friday is the day after Thanksgiving in the United States. Now, 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:56.760 there is an apocryphal story that says the origins of 0:02:56.800 --> 0:03:00.680 Black Friday are deeply racist and tie to the United 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:05.560 States history with slavery. According to that story, slave traders 0:03:05.560 --> 0:03:08.680 would sell slaves at a discount on the day after 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:12.239 Thanksgiving to help plantation owners who are going to want 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:15.200 to purchase more slaves to do work leading up to 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:20.600 the winter. That's a horrible, horrible thing. But the story 0:03:20.760 --> 0:03:24.560 isn't true at all. And honestly, I find it hard 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:27.920 to believe that slave traders would respond to an increase 0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:32.800 in demand by lowering their prices. They already seem like terrible, 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:35.200 terrible human beings. I don't think of them as being 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:40.760 particularly altruistic. However, we can put that whole explanation aside. Anyway, 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:44.440 If anyone tells you Black Friday is based in slavery, 0:03:44.440 --> 0:03:47.800 that is not true. The term Black Friday in relation 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:50.960 to the day after Thanksgiving did not appear in print 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:54.960 until the nineteen fifties. As far as we can determine. 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:59.280 There was, however, an earlier version of Black Friday, though 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:03.600 that was the day after Thanksgiving. That Black Friday wasn't 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:05.920 associated with a holiday at all, but rather with a 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:11.120 stock market crash that happened on Friday, September twenty, eighteen 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:14.800 sixty nine. The cause of that crash was that there 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:19.880 were two speculators named Jay Gould and James Fisk, and 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:24.400 together they were able to drive up gold prices way 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:26.720 way up while they were trying to corner the market 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:30.760 on gold on the New York Gold Exchange. They had 0:04:30.800 --> 0:04:35.240 even planted a story to convince US President Ulysses S. 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:40.120 Grant to stop gold sales. They had this report that 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:44.200 it was going to hurt farmers out west. Meanwhile, they 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:47.040 bought up as much gold as they could and that 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:49.760 raised gold prices as a result. So they thought they 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:51.880 were gonna be rich. They're gonna buy up the gold 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:55.880 and then they could sell it off at these elevated prices. However, 0:04:55.960 --> 0:04:58.599 President Grant found out about it, and he ordered the 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:01.640 release of millie ends of dollars of gold to be 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:05.919 made available on the market, and that caused prices to crash. 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:10.040 Suddenly there was way more supply, and this crash ended 0:05:10.120 --> 0:05:13.760 up affecting the stock market as well. However, this was 0:05:13.800 --> 0:05:17.440 a moment of acute pain. It was a sharp depth 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:21.520 in the stock market, thus the name Black Friday, but 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:24.320 in the long termment that the nation was actually able 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:28.240 to avoid a more persistent depression, so it ended up 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:31.600 turning out better than it otherwise would have. The earliest 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:34.839 known reference to the day after thanks Giving being Black 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:39.640 Friday dates to nineteen fifty one from a periodical titled 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:45.159 Factory Management and Maintenance. But it was a real page turner. 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:49.800 But in that article, the author was describing this tendency 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:53.839 for workers to call in sick the day after Thanksgiving, 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:56.479 and really they were just trying to make a long 0:05:56.560 --> 0:06:00.040 weekend out of the holiday because at that time it 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:03.599 is not commonplace for most businesses to close down on 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:08.440 both Thursday, the day of Thanksgiving, and Friday. So this 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:13.159 piece was sort of sardonically comparing the malaise being felt 0:06:13.200 --> 0:06:16.880 by workers across the nation to the bubonic plague also 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:20.640 known as the Black Death everyone would just mysteriously be 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:25.080 sick that Friday and not show up to work. It 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:28.080 would take another decade before we would see the name 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:32.839 Black Friday associated with shopping for the day after Thanksgiving. 0:06:33.400 --> 0:06:37.320 This would come out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The local police 0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:41.040 force there would refer to that Friday and that Saturday 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:44.960 following Thanksgiving US both Black Friday and Black Saturday. This 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:48.480 was because those two days had become the busiest shopping 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:52.400 days of the year. Thanksgiving leads into the holiday season, 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:56.440 and in post World War two America, the holiday season 0:06:56.960 --> 0:07:00.240 was beginning to be associated and has been said, ends 0:07:00.640 --> 0:07:04.679 with lots of material gifts. Consumerism was on the rise. 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:07.719 A lot of people had a lot more discretionary income 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:11.320 and a desire to spend it. So the police referred 0:07:11.360 --> 0:07:14.920 to Friday and Saturday as Black Friday and Black Saturday 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:18.200 because of the headaches that came along with all that 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:21.880 busy shopping, mostly in the form of stuff like traffic 0:07:21.920 --> 0:07:26.200 problems and shoplifting. Plus the fact that this rise in 0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:30.000 activity meant it was virtually impossible to get the day 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:32.840 off if you were a Philadelphia cop, and you would 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:35.920 probably have to put in an extra long shift to boot, 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:40.040 so they didn't really like it. Now, in the nineteen eighties, 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:44.560 a new version of the history of Black Friday popped up, 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:48.800 and this version claimed that the name Black Friday stemmed 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:51.960 from the fact that it was on that day that 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:56.160 many merchants would finally see their annual figures show a profit. 0:07:56.600 --> 0:08:00.440 The idea was that the enormous amount of business on 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:04.040 that Friday would take businesses from operating at a loss 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:07.760 or operating in the red in other words, and push 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:12.840 them toward profitability or operating in the black. Thus black Friday. 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:15.680 Now that refers to the practice of denoting losses or 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:19.920 negative numbers in a ledger using red ink and positive 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:23.840 numbers using black ink. And while that's a cute story, 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:28.280 it's not, you know, real. In fact, a lot of 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:32.360 stores see more sales on the Saturday before Christmas because 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:39.080 lots of Americans are procrastinators. But this fictional history of 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:42.760 the origin of Black Friday took hold in the American psyche, 0:08:43.040 --> 0:08:46.240 and to go along with it, stores began holding big 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:50.320 sales to bring more and more shoppers into their stores. 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:53.959 And this strategy worked, and every year we would see 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:57.320 more efforts to make it even bigger, with stuff like 0:08:57.440 --> 0:09:02.079 door buster offers, so called because those sales offer seemingly 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:07.079 huge discounts right at opening hours and are typically those 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:11.800 those figures, those those amounts, those discounts are only available 0:09:11.920 --> 0:09:15.160 for a very short time, or the inventory for those 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:17.960 products is so small that the store will no doubt 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:21.920 sell out within minutes of opening, or both in many cases. 0:09:22.480 --> 0:09:25.680 So often these sales are tied to an effort to 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:29.240 move older merchandise out of stores to make way for 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:33.320 newer products. So stuff like electronics, particularly big ticket items 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:37.439 like televisions or small appliances, tend to take up some space, 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:40.960 and manufacturers want to come out with new models every year, 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:46.080 and according to uh Adam Burakowski of Wirecutter, large appliances 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:50.319 are kind of a an exception. You rarely see big, 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:54.439 significant markdowns on large appliances, but small appliances and televisions, 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:57.440 which can get pretty darn big these days, they can 0:09:57.480 --> 0:10:00.240 get marked off quite a bit, and most lee in 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:03.360 order to make room for new models. Black Friday opened 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:06.480 up a chance for stores to offload older stuff, perhaps 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:09.959 at a discount, after sales had slowed down considerably, so 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:13.400 by the nineteen eighties, Black Friday was established as the 0:10:13.480 --> 0:10:17.280 formal beginning of the holiday shopping season, and while some 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:22.640 online service providers like compu Serve would introduce online shopping 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:26.760 in the nineteen eighties, it was a far distant second 0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:30.840 to shopping in physical stores. It had barely registered. It 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:35.560 really wasn't until the mid nineteen nineties when Netscape one 0:10:35.640 --> 0:10:40.600 point oh incorporated the Secure Socket Layer Protocol the SSL protocol. 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:45.360 That's when online transactions could be considered truly secure for 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:49.000 the first time. That led to the possibility of turning 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:53.480 the Internet, and specifically the Web, into a commerce destination. 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:57.920 Sites like Amazon and eBay helped usher in a new 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:02.320 era of commerce, making it practical and then desirable to 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:06.120 shop online. While those two sites saw a lot of success, 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:09.240 the early days of e commerce also saw a lot 0:11:09.280 --> 0:11:12.360 of businesses rush into that space without really forming a 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:15.840 strategy around it. After the dust would settle in the 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:18.920 wake of the dot com bubble implosion in the early 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:21.800 two thousand's, companies began to take a more measured approach 0:11:21.840 --> 0:11:24.440 and e commerce started to come into its own. In 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:28.680 two thousand five, a marketing team led by Ellen Davis 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:32.800 at a company called shop dot Org introduced the concept 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:36.880 of cyber Monday. This would be e commerce's response to 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:40.800 Black Friday, the sales pitch road itself. Why would you 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:44.839 leave your comfortable home and brave potentially bad weather and 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:48.600 guaranteed terrible traffic to fight your way into a store 0:11:48.960 --> 0:11:51.160 only to find out that the thing you wanted to 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:55.680 buy has already sold out. Why risk getting hurt or 0:11:55.800 --> 0:12:01.400 worse as single minded consumers shove and elbow and kick 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:04.800 their way to get the last tickle me Elmo doll 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:07.280 or whatever must have items happened to be on sale 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:11.880 that year. Why not instead sit at home and order 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:15.720 your holiday gifts online and have them either delivered to 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:19.000 you or even to the people you plan to give 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:21.360 gifts to. You take out the whole step of having 0:12:21.360 --> 0:12:25.959 to take the gifts to the people. Cyber Monday was born. 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:29.480 I'll explain more in just a moment, but first let's 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:39.600 take a quick break to thank our sponsor. Now, the 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:43.480 concept of cyber Monday didn't just arrive out of the blue. 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:46.680 For a few years leading up to two thousand five, 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:52.440 analysts had seen a boost and online line sales on 0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:55.600 the Monday following Black Friday. They had seen this trend 0:12:55.760 --> 0:12:59.560 happening so maybe some people were late to the game 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:02.240 and they weren't able to land a deal on Black Friday. 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:05.120 Maybe some of them weren't able to get hold of 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:08.120 that must have item in a physical store, so now 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:11.360 they were looking online. But whatever the reason, by two 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:15.079 thousand five, Cyber Monday was one of the busier online 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:18.920 shopping days of the year, but not the busiest, in fact, 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:21.840 not even in the top ten. By two thousand five, 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:25.320 it was more like the twelfth most popular shopping day 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:29.840 online at that point. But the Cyber Monday marketing idea 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:33.880 would change that. So the media, here's about this idea 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:37.440 in two thousand five, and they jump all over this 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:42.199 concept of Cyber Monday. And this is no surprise. News 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:46.000 about sales tends to get a lot of attention, whether 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:50.480 it's in print, audio, or television spots. You've probably seen 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:54.520 countless articles and videos that lists the biggest Black Friday 0:13:54.720 --> 0:13:57.920 or Cyber Monday deals. There's a whole industry around this. 0:13:58.559 --> 0:14:01.720 There are groups that start putting out information about it 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:05.640 before November even starts to talk about the big Black 0:14:05.679 --> 0:14:08.600 Friday or Cyber Monday deals that are coming down the line. 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:13.480 So media outlets were highly motivated to take this new 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:17.480 concept and to run with it. Online retailers would get 0:14:17.480 --> 0:14:20.760 on board too, because the media coverage amounted to free 0:14:20.800 --> 0:14:24.280 publicity and they started to see their sales increase. So 0:14:24.600 --> 0:14:27.720 two thousand five was a good start. Analysts estimated the 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:31.840 online retailers saw about four eight four million dollars in 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:36.920 sales collectively on that Monday that year. But the retailers 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:39.520 would prepare themselves to really push for it in a 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:43.920 big way in the years to follow. By creating promotions 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:48.560 and sales tied to this concept of cyber Monday, they 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:54.359 could actually increase sales dramatically over a typical shopping day online. 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:59.600 In two thousand and six, CNN ran a story that 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:03.400 point it out that certain sought after items were being 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:07.800 really scarce in brick and mortar stores but were available online. 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:13.360 The article had the title, for e tailors, It's Cyber Monday, 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:16.760 and it had a subheadline that said traffic tracking services 0:15:17.080 --> 0:15:21.520 showed a fifty increase in Internet traffic at various online 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:25.480 commerce sites on that Monday. The sought after items included 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:30.280 stuff like the PlayStation three gaming console from Sony, Nintendo's 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:35.160 we gaming console, and the aforementioned Elmo, though this one 0:15:35.280 --> 0:15:38.440 was the Tickle Me Elmo t m X. And by 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:41.560 the way, just as a side note, I actually watched 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:45.440 a video of that Elmo toy for this podcast because 0:15:45.440 --> 0:15:49.080 I'm nothing if not thorough in my research, and I 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:51.240 didn't remember this toy. That's why I was like, what 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:53.880 is the tickle Me Elmo t MX? How is that 0:15:53.960 --> 0:15:56.280 different from the Tickle Me Elmo, which was a doll 0:15:56.280 --> 0:16:00.680 that would laugh and vibrate like crazy whenever you activated it. 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:05.600 So in the video I saw Elmo as a toy 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:09.160 that could stand up. Is is actually standing and you 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:12.320 would activate it by pressing certain points on the doll 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:15.040 and it would start to laugh and it moves its 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:18.160 arms and eventually it bends over like it's laughing so 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:20.760 hard it can't stand up straight. It falls over onto 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:23.160 the ground, and then ultimately at the end of this 0:16:23.240 --> 0:16:26.000 it stands itself back up. The best part about this 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:29.880 story is while I was watching this, my coworker Noel Brown, 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:32.560 who's one of the hosts of Ridiculous History, walked up 0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:34.840 behind me and he asked me what the heck was 0:16:34.880 --> 0:16:38.080 I watching. Although he didn't use those words, he he 0:16:38.120 --> 0:16:41.240 was a bit more coarse in his language, but upon 0:16:41.440 --> 0:16:44.000 explaining it, he shook his head and walked away. That's 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:46.680 the typical response I get here at the office. In 0:16:46.680 --> 0:16:49.960 two thousand seven, online sales were up to seven hundred 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:54.960 thirty million dollars. Then, in December two thousand seven, the 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:58.680 United States entered what was later called the Great Recession. 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:02.880 This was when real estate market collapsed, which in turn 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:06.520 made mortgage backed securities issued by banks to fall in 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:10.240 value dramatically, and that in turn threatened the solvency of 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:14.399 various financial institutions like those banks that led to the 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:18.440 government bailouts of banks and businesses began laying off workers 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:21.960 and eliminating jobs. It doubled the unemployment rate in the 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:25.639 United States until it hit ten percent. Now, the reason 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:31.480 I mentioned all of that is because, despite this economic downturn, 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:36.040 online retailers would see a year over year increase in 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:39.040 sales from two thousand seven to two thousand eight two 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:43.680 thousand seven seven thirty million dollars two thousand eight, eight 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:48.480 hundred forty six million dollars despite the economic downturn. Now, 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:52.320 one possible reason for the higher number is that people 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:54.680 weren't just looking for a good deal in two thousand eight, 0:17:55.080 --> 0:17:58.280 they needed good deals. People still wanted to buy presents 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:01.639 for friends and family, but money was tight, so sales 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:04.760 were more important than ever. An online seemed to give 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:09.720 the biggest access to those sales. The holiday season in 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:13.080 two thousand eight also saw a rising battle between traditional 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:18.199 retailer Walmart an online giant Amazon. Amazon would take the 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:22.800 number one spot according to traffic tracking services, with an 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:27.879 increase of twenty one percent more traffic year over year. Walmart, 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:32.919 by comparison, only saw a six percent increase. More importantly, 0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:37.000 for Amazon, it became the most popular online destination for 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:41.240 commerce on Cyber Monday. In two thousand nine, com Score, 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:44.040 which is a data analysis firm, published a report that 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:47.640 said forty one point six percent of all online shoppers 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:51.000 were logging in from home, but fifty two point nine 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:55.000 percent were logging in from work. So maybe that don't 0:18:55.080 --> 0:18:59.200 want to go to work itis bubonic plague that prompted 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:03.240 that initial article that gave us the term Black Friday 0:19:03.320 --> 0:19:07.040 for the day after Thanksgiving, maybe that now extends to 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:10.800 everyone on the following Monday. They might be at work, 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:13.960 but instead of actually working, they could be scouring the 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:17.399 internet for the best deals in lowest prices, same as 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:21.480 it ever was. I guess Walmart would strike back against 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:25.560 Amazon in two thousand nine when when it announced cyber 0:19:25.760 --> 0:19:30.720 Week and set the chorus for things as they are now. 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:34.600 This extended the sales that Walmart was showing off for 0:19:34.640 --> 0:19:38.919 a full week following Thanksgiving. That would prompt other retailers 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:43.080 to follow suit in and would also be when Cyber 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:47.000 Monday would become the busiest online shopping day of the year, 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:50.359 and it's been that way ever since. Was also the 0:19:50.400 --> 0:19:55.520 first year that Cyber Monday sales would top one billion dollars. 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:58.840 But just to put things into perspective, that same year 0:19:59.160 --> 0:20:02.560 saw shoppers visit real world stores to the tune of 0:20:02.680 --> 0:20:07.679 ten point seven billion dollars in sales, So cyber Monday 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:09.960 was a big success, but it was still trailing far 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:15.000 behind Black Friday and traditional stores. The next year in 0:20:16.119 --> 0:20:20.199 c NBC rather predictably reported that Black Friday and Cyber 0:20:20.280 --> 0:20:25.600 Monday had effectively gloamed together to create this mutated beast 0:20:25.760 --> 0:20:28.960 of a long shopping weekend, and we were starting to 0:20:28.960 --> 0:20:33.320 see sales extend further out in both directions from Black Friday. 0:20:33.320 --> 0:20:36.159 While this also had the effect of cannibalizing some of 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:40.280 the sales on Friday and Monday themselves. Ultimately, I'm pretty 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:43.760 sure merchants don't really care when they're selling stuff. They 0:20:43.800 --> 0:20:46.200 just care if they are selling it and how much 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:49.480 they're able to sell. In two thousand twelve, we would 0:20:49.480 --> 0:20:53.040 see another shift in consumer behavior, one that would shape 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:58.320 the way retailers would target customers. More shoppers, nearly twenty 0:20:58.400 --> 0:21:02.359 percent of them began to smartphones to look at cyber deals. 0:21:02.800 --> 0:21:05.520 This was a twelve percent increase from the previous year 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:09.480 and also an indication that mobile browsing was the future. 0:21:09.760 --> 0:21:12.639 And this, by the way, was something the entire online 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:16.119 content world was starting to realize. Right around this point. 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:19.760 Anyone who worked in that world, such as yours truly 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:23.280 was starting to think about ways to optimize content for 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:26.920 the mobile experience. It was clear that companies that could 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:29.960 make their online experience a positive one, no matter what 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:33.120 sort of device someone might use to access it, would 0:21:33.119 --> 0:21:36.720 be well ahead of the game. That included e commerce sites, 0:21:36.920 --> 0:21:40.240 which began to invest more money in creating user interfaces 0:21:40.280 --> 0:21:45.320 for their stores, specifically for smartphones. In all, consumers spent 0:21:45.480 --> 0:21:50.240 one point four six five billion dollars in online shopping 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:54.960 on Cyber Monday. In two thousand twelve, electronics, computer hardware, 0:21:55.000 --> 0:21:58.879 and video games all experienced huge jumps in sales gains 0:21:59.080 --> 0:22:03.040 year over year, but the top performing category according to 0:22:03.040 --> 0:22:07.560 com Score was in digital content and subscriptions. Also by 0:22:07.600 --> 0:22:10.800 two thousand twelve, there was a pretty much even split 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:13.520 between people buying stuff while surfing the web from home 0:22:13.840 --> 0:22:15.760 and those who were still on the clock at work. 0:22:16.320 --> 0:22:19.720 In two thousand thirteen, fashion websites began to finally get 0:22:19.760 --> 0:22:23.440 in on this Cyber Monday game. Clothing retailers like Old 0:22:23.520 --> 0:22:27.119 Navy started to launch their own Cyber Monday deals, taking 0:22:27.119 --> 0:22:30.520 advantage of the same shopping frenzy as other retailers. And 0:22:30.560 --> 0:22:33.639 this actually reminds us that one of the values of 0:22:33.680 --> 0:22:37.000 these days, both Black Friday and of Cyber Monday, to retailers, 0:22:37.040 --> 0:22:39.639 in large part is due to the fact that we 0:22:39.800 --> 0:22:43.720 as consumers have been conditioned to shop on those days. 0:22:44.200 --> 0:22:47.719 So many people are already in a mindset to go 0:22:47.800 --> 0:22:50.320 out there and get ready to buy stuff, and by 0:22:50.400 --> 0:22:53.880 leveraging that from the retail side and pairing a good 0:22:53.880 --> 0:22:56.320 deal or two to take advantage of it wherever you can, 0:22:56.800 --> 0:23:00.000 just makes really good business sense. In two thousand fifty, 0:23:00.440 --> 0:23:03.880 Target announced it was offering up a fifteen percent discount 0:23:03.880 --> 0:23:07.560 across all of Target dot Com for Cyber Monday, showing 0:23:07.600 --> 0:23:11.040 that the big retail businesses were really playing serious at 0:23:11.040 --> 0:23:15.600 this point and in things would really go crazy as 0:23:15.600 --> 0:23:18.960 the concept of cyber Week took hold for more retailers. 0:23:19.280 --> 0:23:21.400 I'll explain more in just a moment, but first let's 0:23:21.440 --> 0:23:31.760 take another quick break to thank our sponsor so In. 0:23:32.840 --> 0:23:38.280 According to calm Score, retailers saw eleven billion dollars in 0:23:38.400 --> 0:23:42.160 sales during cyber Week. Now that started on Monday, November 0:23:43.119 --> 0:23:46.960 and it ended on December four. Cyber Monday itself accounted 0:23:46.960 --> 0:23:51.200 for nearly two point seven billion dollars in sales all alone. 0:23:51.359 --> 0:23:54.520 And not only that, but starting on Thanksgiving Day, e 0:23:54.680 --> 0:23:59.280 commerce sites collectively saw more than one billion dollars of 0:23:59.359 --> 0:24:04.399 sales every day for eleven days straight. It drove the 0:24:04.440 --> 0:24:07.760 holiday season sales, which combs scored defined as starting on 0:24:07.840 --> 0:24:12.040 November one and indig on December four, to achieve nearly 0:24:12.119 --> 0:24:18.720 thirty eight billion dollars in sales. That's a ton of money. Also, 0:24:18.760 --> 0:24:22.320 in twenty sixteen, one two million people in the United 0:24:22.320 --> 0:24:26.639 States did some online shopping on cyber Monday. But on 0:24:26.760 --> 0:24:31.800 Black Friday only one hundred sixteen million Americans did any shopping, 0:24:32.400 --> 0:24:35.359 and that includes sixty seven point nine million people who 0:24:35.400 --> 0:24:39.520 were doing online shopping. So in twenty sixteen, cyber Monday 0:24:39.920 --> 0:24:44.400 pulled ahead of Black Friday as the busiest shopping day 0:24:44.560 --> 0:24:47.560 in the United States and all without having to line 0:24:47.640 --> 0:24:49.840 up in front of a store at three in the morning. 0:24:50.320 --> 0:24:55.480 In comm Score reported that consumers spent three point three 0:24:55.640 --> 0:25:01.480 six billion dollars on Cyber Monday from usk top computers, 0:25:02.119 --> 0:25:06.160 so just from desktops. According to the Verge, purchases made 0:25:06.200 --> 0:25:09.879 from mobile devices accounted for another two billion dollars in sales. 0:25:10.400 --> 0:25:13.280 And according to multiple sources, although this doesn't really match 0:25:13.359 --> 0:25:17.159 up with the com Score numbers, the collective cyber Monday 0:25:17.280 --> 0:25:21.720 sales efforts in twenty seventeen amounted to six point five 0:25:21.880 --> 0:25:25.600 nine billion dollars in sales. Now, if you look at 0:25:25.640 --> 0:25:29.840 the sales figures from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, online sales 0:25:29.880 --> 0:25:34.840 amounted to nineteen point six to billion dollars, truly an 0:25:35.200 --> 0:25:38.760 enormous sum of money. Now. According to a survey from 0:25:38.960 --> 0:25:42.560 National Retail Federation as well as a company called prosper 0:25:42.680 --> 0:25:47.040 Insights and Analytics that partnered to make this survey. Fifty 0:25:47.119 --> 0:25:51.280 eight million Americans chose to do their holiday shopping online, 0:25:51.400 --> 0:25:56.000 only fifty one million chose to shop only at physical stores, 0:25:56.680 --> 0:26:00.560