Overview of Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Written by businessideas.info

As a salesman, it is important to be familiar with critical sales events such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Each of those days are some of the busiest shopping days of the year, although contrarily to popular belief, Black Friday is rarely the biggest (although in 2003 and 2005 it was).

There is a lot of history behind Black Friday, and it originally got its name in Philadelphia from the local police department. Being that the Friday after Thanksgiving was the official start of the shopping season, the streets were so busy and the sidewalks so packed that the day became chaotic, similar to the "Black" days leading up to the Great Depression in which the stock market crashed. Since merchants did not like a negative connotation being associated with such an important shopping day, they changed it to the more familiar theory, that Black Friday marked the beginning of when retailers started making profits and stopped taking losses. This means that during all other quarters, retailers would operate at a loss, and make their profit during the holiday season. This is not true for most large retailers, as they make profit in all quarters, but for some businesses the holiday season is what makes up for previous losses and generates profit. As for the meaning behind the color, it comes from accounting. When recording a firm's profit or loss, an accountant would use red ink to signify a loss, and black ink for profit. Therefore, when a firm was successful, they were "in the black", and likewise in the red if doing poorly.

Cyber Monday is the Monday immediately following Thanksgiving, and is one of the busiest online shopping days of the year. Cyber Monday is widely acknowledged, with major retailers advertising Cyber Monday deals. The term was coined by the National Retail Federation in response to data that online businesses saw heavily increased sales on the Monday following Thanksgiving. Cyber Monday is not as widely known or time tested as Black Friday, as it has only been around for a few years, but many consumers (especially those who shop online frequently) are becoming more familiar with it.