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. 0:00:12.400 --> 0:00:15.360 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:18.960 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:25.000 and I love all things tech and Happy Cyber Monday, everybody. 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:29.840 As I'm sure we're all aware, this year, being in 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:32.600 the middle of a pandemic is a very different year 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:36.760 than previous ones. And uh, I'm sure you all were 0:00:36.880 --> 0:00:40.160 very well aware of how that impacted Black Friday, with 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:44.120 a lot of stores moving their sales up well into 0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:48.360 the middle of November to start, and then running them 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:52.640 constantly in order to get those those you know, products 0:00:52.680 --> 0:00:55.000 moved when you know that you're not going to be 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:59.600 able to do those like door buster sales of years past. Personally, 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:02.840 I'm thankful for that, not for the pandemic. I hate that, 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:06.960 but I'm thankful that people would not get trampled upon 0:01:07.480 --> 0:01:10.960 in an effort to get one of six televisions that 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:15.680 have been marked down, you know, or something that's good. 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:20.560 So I thought that since we had a holiday week previously, 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:23.600 which means that while I'm recording this, I'm about to 0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:28.440 get ready for Thanksgiving, that we would listen to an 0:01:28.480 --> 0:01:32.120 episode I recorded and published two years ago in ten 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:35.679 and originally published on November twenty one, The History of 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:38.920 Cyber Monday, so that we could kind of get a 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:43.520 understanding of where this phenomenon came from and why it exists. 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:52.280 So enjoy this episode from the History of Cyber Monday. Today. 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:54.360 I thought I'd changed things up a bit and talk 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:58.600 about the history and evolution of cyber Monday. So where 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:02.560 did this come from? And are the deals on cyber 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:05.320 Monday really great? And I guess the answer to that 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:09.600 second question is essentially, uh, it depends. But first let's 0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:14.040 talk about some history. So before there was cyber Monday, 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:17.240 there was Black Friday, both in the sense that Black 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:20.280 Friday as a thing is older than Cyber Monday, and 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:23.960 also cyber Monday is the Monday that follows Black Friday, 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:27.720 so technically it's true in two different senses. All right, 0:02:27.760 --> 0:02:30.000 So what is Black Friday? One of the United States? 0:02:30.360 --> 0:02:34.400 Black Friday is the friday following Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving in the 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:38.240 United States falls on the fourth Thursday of November, at 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:41.760 least it has ever since nineteen thirty nine, when Franklin 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:45.120 Delano Roosevelt moved the holiday up a week from the 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:49.240 final Thursday of November. Now, since November two thousand eighteen 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:53.120 started on a Thursday, November one was a Thursday. That 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:56.480 means that two thousand eighteen will see Thanksgiving fall as 0:02:56.520 --> 0:03:00.480 early as it can, which means November twenty two, the 0:03:00.560 --> 0:03:04.640 latest it can fall in the month is November. Anyway, 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:08.800 Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving in the United States. Now, 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:13.640 there is an apocryphal story that says the origins of 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:17.560 Black Friday are deeply racist and tied to the United 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:22.440 States history with slavery. According to that story, slave traders 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:25.560 would sell slaves at a discount on the day after 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:29.160 Thanksgiving to help plantation owners who are going to want 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:32.080 to purchase more slaves to do work leading up to 0:03:32.120 --> 0:03:37.480 the winter. That's a horrible, horrible thing. But the story 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:41.440 isn't true at all, And honestly, I find it hard 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:44.800 to believe that slave traders would respond to an increase 0:03:44.840 --> 0:03:49.680 in demand by lowering their prices. They already seem like terrible, 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:52.040 terrible human beings. I don't think of them as being 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:57.640 particularly altruistic. However, we can put that whole explanation aside. Anyway, 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:01.320 If anyone tells you Black Friday is based in slavery. 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:04.680 That is not true. The term Black Friday in relation 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:07.840 to the day after Thanksgiving did not appear in print 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:11.840 until the nineteen fifties. As far as we can determine. 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:16.200 There was, however, an earlier version of Black Friday, though 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:20.039 that was not the day after Thanksgiving. That Black Friday 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:22.640 wasn't associated with a holiday at all, but rather with 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:27.160 a stock market crash that happened on Friday, September twenty four, 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:31.279 eighteen sixty nine. The cause of that crash was that 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:36.080 there were two speculators named Jay Gould and James Fisk, 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:40.799 and together they were able to drive up gold prices 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:43.200 way way up while they were trying to corner the 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:47.480 market on gold on the New York Gold Exchange. They 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:52.120 had even planted a story to convince US President Ulysses S. 0:04:52.200 --> 0:04:57.000 Grant to stop gold sales. They had this report that 0:04:57.080 --> 0:05:01.080 it was going to hurt farmers out west. Meanwhile, they 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:03.920 bought up as much gold as they could and that 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:06.640 raised gold prices as a result. So they thought they 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:08.799 were gonna be rich. They're gonna buy up the gold 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:12.760 and then they could sell it off at these elevated prices. However, 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:15.479 President Grant found out about it, and he ordered the 0:05:15.520 --> 0:05:18.800 release of millions of dollars of gold to be made 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:22.799 available on the market, and that caused prices to crash. 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:26.960 Suddenly there was way more supply, and this crash ended 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:30.640 up affecting the stock market as well. However, this was 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:34.320 a moment of acute pain. It was a sharp depth 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:38.400 in the stock market, thus the name Black Friday, but 0:05:38.680 --> 0:05:41.200 in the long termment that the nation was actually able 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:45.120 to avoid a more persistent depression, so it ended up 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:48.440 turning out better than it otherwise would have. The earliest 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:51.719 known reference to the day after things Giving being Black 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:56.520 Friday dates to nineteen fifty one from a periodical titled 0:05:56.960 --> 0:06:02.039 Factory Management and Maintenance that it was a real page turner, 0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:06.719 But in that article, the author was describing this tendency 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:10.719 for workers to call in sick the day after Thanksgiving, 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:13.359 and really they were just trying to make a long 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:16.760 weekend out of the holiday, because at that time it 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:20.479 was not commonplace for most businesses to close down on 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:25.320 both Thursday, the day of Thanksgiving, and Friday. So this 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:30.039 piece was sort of sardonically comparing the malaise being felt 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:33.760 by workers across the nation to the Bubonic plague also 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:37.520 known as the Black Death. Everyone would just mysteriously be 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:41.960 sick that Friday and not show up to work. It 0:06:42.000 --> 0:06:44.960 would take another decade before we would see the name 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:49.760 Black Friday associated with shopping for the day after Thanksgiving. 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:54.200 This would come out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The local police 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:57.920 force there would refer to that Friday and that Saturday 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:01.680 following Thanksgiving US both Black Frida Day and Black Saturday. 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:04.720 This was because those two days had become the busiest 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:09.280 shopping days of the year. Thanksgiving leads into the holiday season, 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:13.320 and in post World War two America, the holiday season 0:07:13.880 --> 0:07:17.680 was beginning to be associated and has been since with 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:21.920 lots of material gifts. Consumerism was on the rise. A 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:25.400 lot of people had a lot more discretionary income and 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:28.360 a desire to spend it. So the police referred to 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:32.400 Friday and Saturday as Black Friday and Black Saturday because 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:36.040 of the headaches that came along with all that busy shopping, 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:40.440 mostly in the form of stuff like traffic problems and shoplifting, 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:44.400 Plus the fact that this rise in activity meant it 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:47.560 was virtually impossible to get the day off. If you 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:50.400 were a Philadelphia cop and you would probably have to 0:07:50.440 --> 0:07:54.160 put in an extra long shift to boot, so they 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:57.520 didn't really like it. Now, in the nineteen eighties, a 0:07:57.680 --> 0:08:01.440 new version of the history of Black Friday popped up, 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:05.680 and this version claimed that the name Black Friday stemmed 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:08.760 from the fact that it was on that day that 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:13.000 many merchants would finally see their annual figures show a profit. 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:17.320 The idea was that the enormous amount of business on 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:20.920 that Friday would take businesses from operating at a loss 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:24.680 or operating in the red in other words, and pushed 0:08:24.760 --> 0:08:29.760 them toward profitability or operating in the black. Thus black Friday. 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:32.560 Now that refers to the practice of denoting losses or 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:36.800 negative numbers in a ledger using red ink and positive 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:40.719 numbers using black ink. And while that's a cute story, 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:45.160 it's not, you know, real. In fact, a lot of 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:49.240 stores see more sales on the Saturday before Christmas because 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:55.960 lots of Americans are procrastinators. But this fictional history of 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:59.080 the origin of Black Friday took hold in the American 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:02.720 psyche had to go along with it. Stores began holding 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:07.160 big sales to bring more and more shoppers into their stores, 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:10.880 and this strategy worked, and every year we would see 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:14.200 more efforts to make it even bigger with stuff like 0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:19.000 door buster offers, so called because those sales offer seemingly 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:24.000 huge discounts right at opening hours and are typically those 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:28.680 those figures, those those amounts, those discounts are only available 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:32.040 for a very short time, or the inventory for those 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:34.880 products is so small that the store will no doubt 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:38.800 sell out within minutes of opening, or both in many cases. 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:42.600 So often these sales are tied to an effort to 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:46.120 move older merchandise out of stores to make way for 0:09:46.200 --> 0:09:50.200 newer products. So stuff like electronics, particularly big ticket items 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:54.319 like televisions or small appliances, tend to take up some space, 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:57.840 and manufacturers want to come out with new models every year, 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:02.960 and according to H. Tam Burakowski of Wirecutter, large appliances 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:07.200 are kind of a an exception. You rarely see big 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:11.359 significant markdowns on large appliances, but small appliances and televisions, 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:14.360 which can get pretty darn big these days, they can 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:17.400 get marked off quite a bit, and mostly in order 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:20.400 to make room for new models. Black Friday opened up 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:23.480 a chance for stores to offload older stuff, perhaps at 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:27.520 a discount, after sales had slowed down considerably. So By 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:30.720 the nineteen eighties, Black Friday was established as the formal 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:34.760 beginning of the holiday shopping season, and while some online 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:39.600 service providers like compu Serve would introduce online shopping in 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:43.959 the nineteen eighties, it was a far distant second to 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:48.240 shopping in physical stores. It had barely registered. It really 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:52.760 wasn't until the mid nineteen nineties when Netscape one point 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:57.480 oh incorporated the Secure Socket Layer Protocol the SSL protocol. 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:02.240 That's when online transaction could be considered truly secure for 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:05.880 the first time. That led to the possibility of turning 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:10.359 the Internet and specifically the Web, into a commerce destination. 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:14.800 Sites like Amazon and eBay helped usher in a new 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:19.199 era of commerce, making it practical and then desirable to 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:23.000 shop online. While those two sites saw a lot of success, 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:26.120 the early days of e commerce also saw a lot 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:29.240 of businesses rush into that space without really forming a 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:32.720 strategy around it. After the dust would settle in the 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:35.800 wake of the dot com bubble implosion in the early 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:38.680 two thousand's, companies began to take a more measured approach 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:41.320 and e commerce started to come into its own. In 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:45.560 two thousand five, a marketing team led by Ellen Davis 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:49.679 at a company called shop dot Org introduced the concept 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:53.760 of cyber Monday. This would be e commerce's response to 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:57.679 Black Friday, the sales pitch road itself. Why would you 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:01.719 leave your comfortable home and brave potentially bad weather and 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:05.480 guaranteed terrible traffic to fight your way into a store 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:08.080 only to find out that the thing you wanted to 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:12.560 buy has already sold out. Why risk getting hurt or 0:12:12.679 --> 0:12:18.280 worse as single minded consumers shove and elbow and kick 0:12:18.440 --> 0:12:21.680 their way to get the last tickle me Elmo doll 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:24.200 or whatever must have items happened to be on sale 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:28.760 that year. Why not instead sit at home and order 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:32.600 your holiday gifts online and have them either delivered to 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:35.880 you or even to the people you plan to give 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:38.240 gifts to. You take out the whole step of having 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:42.880 to take the gifts to the people. Cyber Monday was born. 0:12:43.360 --> 0:12:46.360 I'll explain more in just a moment, but first let's 0:12:46.400 --> 0:12:56.480 take a quick break to thank our sponsor. Now, the 0:12:56.559 --> 0:13:00.360 concept of cyber Monday didn't just arrive out of the blue. 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:03.560 For a few years, leading up to two thousand five, 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:09.360 analysts had seen a boost and online line sales on 0:13:09.360 --> 0:13:13.160 the Monday following Black Friday, they had seen this trend happening. 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:16.600 So maybe some people were late to the game and 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:19.120 they weren't able to land a deal on Black Friday. 0:13:19.320 --> 0:13:22.000 Maybe some of them weren't able to get hold of 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:25.000 that must have item in a physical store, so now 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:28.240 they were looking online. But whatever the reason, by two 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:31.960 thousand five, Cyber Monday was one of the busier online 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:35.800 shopping days of the year, but not the busiest, in fact, 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:38.720 not even in the top ten. By two thousand five, 0:13:38.760 --> 0:13:42.200 it was more like the twelfth most popular shopping day 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:46.720 online at that point. But the Cyber Monday marketing idea 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:50.760 would change that. So the media, here's about this idea 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:54.360 in two thousand five, and they jump all over this 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:59.079 concept of Cyber Monday. And this is no surprise. News 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:02.880 about sales tends to get a lot of attention, whether 0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:07.360 it's in print, audio, or television spots. You've probably seen 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:11.400 countless articles and videos that lists the biggest Black Friday 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:14.800 or Cyber Monday deals. There's a whole industry around this. 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:18.640 There are groups that start putting out information about it 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:22.520 before November even starts to talk about the big Black 0:14:22.560 --> 0:14:25.480 Friday or Cyber Monday deals that are coming down the line, 0:14:26.040 --> 0:14:30.360 so media outlets were highly motivated to take this new 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:34.360 concept and to run with it. Online retailers would get 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:38.320 on board too, because the media coverage amounted to free publicity, 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:41.680 and they started to see their sales increase. So two 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:45.080 thousand five was a good start. Analysts estimated the online 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:48.720 retailers saw about four d eight four million dollars in 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:53.760 sales collectively on that Monday that year. But the retailers 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:56.400 would prepare themselves to really push for it in a 0:14:56.440 --> 0:15:00.840 big way in the years to follow. By creating promotions 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:05.480 and sales tied to this concept of cyber Monday, they 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:11.239 could actually increase sales dramatically over a typical shopping day online. 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:16.440 In two thousand and six, CNN ran a story that 0:15:16.600 --> 0:15:20.920 pointed out that certain sought after items were being really 0:15:20.960 --> 0:15:24.720 scarce in brick and mortar stores but were available online. 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:30.240 The article had the title for e tailors, It's Cyber Monday, 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:33.640 and it had a subheadline that said traffic tracking services 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:38.440 showed a fifty increase in Internet traffic at various online 0:15:38.480 --> 0:15:42.360 commerce sites on that Monday. The sought after items included 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:47.160 stuff like the PlayStation three gaming console from Sony Nintendo's 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:52.040 we gaming console and the aforementioned Elmo, though this one 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:55.280 was the Tickle Me Elmo t m X. And by 0:15:55.360 --> 0:15:58.440 the way, just as a side note, I actually watched 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:02.320 a video of that Mo toy for this podcast because 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:05.960 I'm nothing if not thorough in my research, and I 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:08.120 didn't remember this toy. That's why I was like, what 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:11.200 is the tickle Me Elmo TMX? How is that different 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:13.240 from the Tickle Me Elmo, which was a doll that 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:17.560 would laugh and vibrate like crazy whenever you activated it. 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:22.480 So in the video, I saw Elmo as a toy 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:26.280 that could stand up is actually standing, and you would 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:29.720 activate it by pressing certain points on the doll and 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:32.440 it would start to laugh and it moves its arms 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:35.280 and eventually it bends over like it's laughing so hard 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:38.160 it can't stand up straight. It falls over onto the ground, 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:40.680 and then ultimately at the end of this it stands 0:16:40.720 --> 0:16:43.640 itself back up. The best part about this story is 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:47.080 while I was watching this, my coworker Noel Brown, who's 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:49.760 one of the hosts of Ridiculous History, walked up behind 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:52.360 me and he asked me what the heck was I watching. 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:55.200 Although he didn't use those words. He he was a 0:16:55.200 --> 0:16:59.000 bit more coarse in his language, but upon explaining it, 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:01.480 he shook his head and walked away. That's the typical 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:04.480 response I get here at the office. In two thousand seven, 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:09.680 online sales were up to seven hundred thirty million dollars. Then, 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:13.280 in December two thousand seven, the United States entered what 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:17.040 was later called the Great Recession. This was when the 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:20.960 real estate market collapsed, which in turn made mortgage backed 0:17:21.080 --> 0:17:25.120 securities issued by banks to fall in value dramatically, and 0:17:25.160 --> 0:17:29.160 that in turn threatened the solvency of various financial institutions 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:32.359 like those banks, that led to the government bailouts of 0:17:32.440 --> 0:17:36.480 banks and businesses began laying off workers and eliminating jobs. 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:39.879 It doubled the unemployment rate in the United States until 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:43.280 it hit ten. Now, the reason I mentioned all of 0:17:43.320 --> 0:17:50.200 that is because, despite this economic downturn, online retailers would 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:54.280 see a year over year increase in sales from two 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:57.400 thousand seven to two thousand eight two thousand seven seven 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:01.959 thirty million dollars two thousand eight, eight hundred forty six 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:06.439 million dollars despite the economic downturn. Now, one possible reason 0:18:06.920 --> 0:18:10.080 for the higher number is that people weren't just looking 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:12.640 for a good deal in two thousand eight, they needed 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:15.919 good deals. People still wanted to buy presents for friends 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:18.880 and family, but money was tight, so sales were more 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:22.920 important than ever. An online seemed to give the biggest 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:27.000 access to those sales. The holiday season in two thousand 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:31.240 eight also saw a rising battle between traditional retailer Walmart 0:18:31.760 --> 0:18:35.760 and online giant Amazon. Amazon would take the number one 0:18:35.920 --> 0:18:40.320 spot according to traffic tracking services, with an increase of 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:45.600 twenty one more traffic year over year. Walmart, by comparison, 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:50.600 only saw a six percent increase. More importantly, for Amazon, 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:54.800 it became the most popular online destination for commerce on 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:58.480 Cyber Monday. In two thousand nine, com Score, which is 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:01.719 a data analysis firm, published a report that said forty 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:05.080 one point six percent of all online shoppers were logging 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:08.919 in from home, but fifty two point nine we're logging 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:12.359 in from work. So maybe that don't want to go 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:18.000 to work itis bubonic plague that prompted that initial article 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:20.880 that gave us the term Black Friday for the day 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:25.280 after Thanksgiving, maybe that now extends to everyone on the 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:28.359 following Monday. They might be at work, but instead of 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:31.520 actually working, they could be scouring the Internet for the 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:34.800 best deals in lowest prices, same as it ever was. 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:39.320 I guess Walmart would strike back against Amazon in two 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:44.479 thousand nine when when it announced cyber Week and set 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:48.639 the chorus for things as they are now. This extended 0:19:48.680 --> 0:19:52.040 the sales that Walmart was showing off for a full 0:19:52.080 --> 0:19:56.240 week following Thanksgiving. That would prompt other retailers to follow 0:19:56.280 --> 0:20:00.640 suit in and would also be when Cyber Monday would 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:04.399 become the busiest online shopping day of the year, and 0:20:04.440 --> 0:20:07.280 it's been that way ever since. Ten was also the 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:12.399 first year that Cyber Monday sales would top one billion dollars, 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:15.720 But just to put things into perspective, that same year 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:19.439 saw shoppers visit real world stores to the tune of 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:24.560 ten point seven billion dollars in sales. So Cyber Monday 0:20:24.600 --> 0:20:26.840 was a big success, but it was still trailing far 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:31.879 behind Black Friday and traditional stores. The next year in 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:37.120 c NBC rather predictably reported that Black Friday and Cyber 0:20:37.160 --> 0:20:42.480 Monday had effectively gloamed together to create this mutated beast 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:45.840 of a long shopping weekend, and we were starting to 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:50.159 see sales extend further out in both directions. From Black Friday. 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:53.040 While this also had the effect of cannibalizing some of 0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:57.120 the sales on Friday and Monday themselves, Ultimately, I'm pretty 0:20:57.160 --> 0:21:00.679 sure merchants don't really care when they're link stuff. They 0:21:00.720 --> 0:21:03.080 just care if they are selling it and how much 0:21:03.119 --> 0:21:06.359 they're able to sell. In two thousand twelve, we would 0:21:06.359 --> 0:21:09.919 see another shift in consumer behavior, one that would shape 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:15.199 the way retailers would target customers. More shoppers, nearly twenty 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:19.240 of them, began to use smartphones to look at cyber deals. 0:21:19.680 --> 0:21:22.960 This was a twelve increase from the previous year and 0:21:23.000 --> 0:21:26.919 also an indication that mobile browsing was the future. And this, 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:30.639 by the way, was something the entire online content world 0:21:30.720 --> 0:21:34.320 was starting to realize. Right around this point. Anyone who 0:21:34.320 --> 0:21:37.440 worked in that world, such as yours, truly was starting 0:21:37.480 --> 0:21:41.760 to think about ways to optimize content for the mobile experience. 0:21:42.080 --> 0:21:44.800 It was clear that companies that could make their online 0:21:44.840 --> 0:21:47.760 experience a positive one, no matter what sort of device 0:21:47.920 --> 0:21:50.800 someone might use to access it, would be well ahead 0:21:50.800 --> 0:21:54.320 of the game. That included e commerce sites, which began 0:21:54.359 --> 0:21:57.879 to invest more money in creating user interfaces for their stores, 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:03.359 specifically for smartphones. In all, consumers spent one point four 0:22:03.520 --> 0:22:08.480 six five billion dollars in online shopping on Cyber Monday. 0:22:08.520 --> 0:22:12.720 In two thousand twelve, Electronics, computer hardware, and video games 0:22:12.760 --> 0:22:16.680 all experienced huge jumps in sales gains year over year, 0:22:17.040 --> 0:22:20.919 but the top performing category according to com Score was 0:22:20.960 --> 0:22:25.359 in digital content and subscriptions. Also by two thousand twelve, 0:22:25.720 --> 0:22:28.720 there was a pretty much even split between people buying 0:22:28.760 --> 0:22:31.280 stuff while surfing the web from home and those who 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:34.240 were still on the clock at work. In two thousand thirteen, 0:22:34.560 --> 0:22:37.679 fashion websites began to finally get in on this Cyber 0:22:37.760 --> 0:22:41.480 Monday game. Clothing retailers like Old Navy started to launch 0:22:41.560 --> 0:22:44.920 their own Cyber Monday deals, taking advantage of the same 0:22:44.960 --> 0:22:48.520 shopping frenzy as other retailers. And this actually reminds us 0:22:48.560 --> 0:22:51.560 that one of the values of these days, both Black 0:22:51.560 --> 0:22:54.600 Friday and of Cyber Monday to retailers, in large part 0:22:55.240 --> 0:22:57.879 is due to the fact that we as consumers have 0:22:58.000 --> 0:23:01.800 been conditioned to shop on those days. So many people 0:23:01.840 --> 0:23:05.159 are already in a mindset to go out there and 0:23:05.200 --> 0:23:08.480 get ready to buy stuff, and by leveraging that from 0:23:08.480 --> 0:23:11.360 the retail side and pairing a good deal or two 0:23:11.440 --> 0:23:14.160 to take advantage of it wherever you can just makes 0:23:14.240 --> 0:23:18.200 really good business sense. In two thousand fifteen, Target announced 0:23:18.240 --> 0:23:21.440 it was offering up a fifteen percent discount across all 0:23:21.520 --> 0:23:24.840 of Target dot com for Cyber Monday, showing that the 0:23:24.880 --> 0:23:28.359 big retail businesses were really playing serious at this point 0:23:28.720 --> 0:23:33.080 and in things would really go crazy as the concept 0:23:33.080 --> 0:23:36.679 of cyber Week took hold for more retailers. I'll explain 0:23:36.720 --> 0:23:38.879 more in just a moment, but first let's take another 0:23:38.960 --> 0:23:50.439 quick break to thank our sponsor so In. According to 0:23:50.680 --> 0:23:56.160 com Score, retailers saw eleven billion dollars in sales during 0:23:56.240 --> 0:24:00.240 cyber Week. Now that started on Monday, November and it 0:24:00.359 --> 0:24:04.320 ended on December four. Cyber Monday itself accounted for nearly 0:24:04.359 --> 0:24:08.280 two point seven billion dollars in sales all alone. And 0:24:08.320 --> 0:24:12.040 not only that, but starting on Thanksgiving Day, e commerce 0:24:12.160 --> 0:24:16.760 sites collectively saw more than one billion dollars of sales 0:24:16.840 --> 0:24:21.720 every day for eleven days straight. It drove the holiday 0:24:21.800 --> 0:24:25.200 season sales, which combs scored defined as starting on November 0:24:25.240 --> 0:24:29.359 one and indian on December four, to achieve nearly thirty 0:24:29.400 --> 0:24:35.600 eight billion dollars in sales. That's a ton of money. Also, 0:24:35.640 --> 0:24:39.200 in twenty sixteen, one two million people in the United 0:24:39.200 --> 0:24:43.520 States did some online shopping on Cyber Monday, but on 0:24:43.640 --> 0:24:48.680 Black Friday only one hundred sixteen million Americans did any shopping, 0:24:49.320 --> 0:24:52.239 and that includes sixty seven point nine million people who 0:24:52.320 --> 0:24:56.399 were doing online shopping. So in twenty sixteen, Cyber Monday 0:24:56.800 --> 0:25:01.280 pulled ahead of Black Friday as the busiest shopping day 0:25:01.480 --> 0:25:04.440 in the United States and all without having to line 0:25:04.520 --> 0:25:06.720 up in front of a store at three in the morning. 0:25:07.200 --> 0:25:12.360 In comm Score reported that consumers spent three point three 0:25:12.520 --> 0:25:19.040 six billion dollars on Cyber Monday from desktop computers, so 0:25:19.240 --> 0:25:23.199 just from desktops. According to the Verge, purchases made from 0:25:23.280 --> 0:25:26.760 mobile devices accounted for another two billion dollars in sales. 0:25:27.280 --> 0:25:30.160 And according to multiple sources, although this doesn't really match 0:25:30.240 --> 0:25:34.040 up with the com Score numbers, the collective Cyber Monday 0:25:34.160 --> 0:25:39.000 sales efforts in seventeen amounted to six point five nine 0:25:39.320 --> 0:25:42.560 billion dollars in sales. Now, if you look at the 0:25:42.600 --> 0:25:47.160 sales figures from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, online sales amounted 0:25:47.240 --> 0:25:52.600 to nineteen point six to billion dollars, truly an enormous 0:25:52.720 --> 0:25:56.200 sum of money. Now, according to a survey from National 0:25:56.320 --> 0:25:59.919 Retail Federation as well as a company called prosper Insights 0:26:00.000 --> 0:26:04.119 and Analytics that partnered to make this survey. Fifty eight 0:26:04.280 --> 0:26:08.600 million Americans chose to do their holiday shopping online, only 0:26:09.080 --> 0:26:12.879 fifty one million chose to shop only at physical stores, 0:26:13.560 --> 0:26:17.440