Cyber Monday Doesn't Exist 247
xsspd2004 writes "Despite a huge amount of hype, the Monday after Thanksgiving is historically only the 12th-biggest online shopping day of the year. Do a Google search on "Cyber Monday," and you get as many as 779,000 results. Not a bad haul for a term that was created just a week and a half ago."
Uh (Score:2, Interesting)
Google index (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Google index (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Google index (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Uh (Score:5, Informative)
look at the results though, they are from cnn, yahoo, cnet etc etc
all big sites, and as you can probably guess, google crawls these sites a few times every day
so google crawling and indexing 1.8m pages in a week isn't impossible at all
Re:Uh (Score:5, Informative)
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go google this post.
Re:Uh (Score:5, Informative)
Without quotation marks I get 5.2M results. With marks, I get 706k and the top 100 results (ok, so I scanned the top 100) are all news sites printing or reprinting stories.
I have to agree here. It appears that someone coined the term and something happened. I'd love to see the historical data off some of the larger E-tailers to see if the term increased sales. If so, I'm predicting that retailers will start naming different days in the year to try to get more sales.
BTW, in case no one knew this Black Friday [wikipedia.org] is historically a day when something bad happens.
Oh - and it looks like "Cyber Monday" is now on Wikipedia as well. Oddly enough, its pending deletion...
The term Cyber Monday is a fairly recent term which refers to the Monday immediately following Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. Similar to Black Friday, one of the busiest shopping days of the year when retail stores often offer great deals, "Cyber Monday" has in recent years been a busy day for online retailers, and one in which online stores offer similarly low prices.
[edit]
Origin of term
The term "Cyber Monday" is a neologism invented by the National Retail Federation, and was never in common use within the ecommerce community. According to shop.org, Scott Silverman, the Executive Director of the company, coined the term during a meeting in August or September 2005 to describe an emerging trend first noticed on the Monday after Thanksgiving, 2004.
Re:Uh (Score:3, Informative)
Mind you, http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&w
Re:Uh (Score:2)
Does essentially one day worth of data (monday after thanksgiving online shopping numbers from 2004) qualify as an emerging trend? Sounds like Scotty just wanted some free advertising this year.
Re:Uh (Score:2)
That being said, I think it's a bullshit term being used to generate buzz and higher sales of cheap plastic crap.
Re:Uh (Score:2)
O rly? (Score:5, Funny)
Somebody has a case of the cyber-Mondays!
Link to 'o rly?' owls (Score:2)
I believe you are required to link to pictures of the 'O Rly?' owls.
Yes, I know owls can't smile, etc. with their beaks, but the original picture cracks me up anyway. (I'm easily amused.) He just looks so joyous and enthusiastic, even though that's a gross misanthropomorphism.
Re:Link to 'o rly?' owls (Score:2)
Is it a Harry Potter reference (haven't seen or read any yet), or am I just getting too old these days??
Re:Uh (Score:2)
J.
Re:Uh (Score:2)
Re:Uh (Score:5, Informative)
"Black Friday" [google.com] - 11,000 results dating back to at least 1993 [google.com].
"Cyber Monday" [google.com] - 20 results, all but one were indeed posted within the past week. The other one is in Russian, and doesn't actually appear to contain the term.
So, if there was such a thing as "Cyber Monday" prior to this Thanksgiving, nobody seemed to know about it, and they sure as heck weren't discussing it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Uh (Score:2)
Why didn't I think of that!
Re:Uh (Score:2)
Cyper Tuesday didn't exist until 20 seconds ago when I typed it into Google and I got back 3,390,000 hits.
Now if only I could use my powers to eliminate dupes from Slashdot. Nah, I'll stick with useing them to get girls.
Re:Uh (Score:2)
So who's to say that google really have 800k results? Google? they're not very objective. Maybe they just make numbers up to make their searched look good? I wouldn't put it past them, abuse of power is becoming a Google speciality.
Are you trying to say... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Are you trying to say... (Score:2)
Re:Are you trying to say... (Score:2)
Re:Are you trying to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, that knowledgable person just entered your card information in the same form that you wouldn't use...
Re:Are you trying to say... (Score:3, Informative)
If that call center agent used that same page or stole the number, the online fraud stuff doesn't kick in and you're liable for the first $50.
Re:Are you trying to say... (Score:4, Insightful)
How am I supposed to know that the form target is https? Am I supposed to analyze the page source code before I click "buy" with my credit card number? Your browser might warn you, and give you a chance to opt-out, if a form submission leaves https mode, but the other way around you can only know, practically speaking, after it's too late.
Of course I could set the browser to warn about all non-encrypted submissions (as some do until by default you turn it off). But that would be extremely annoying for ordinary non-senstive information submission, like posting to a forum, so most people turn it off, a quite reasonable thing to do once you're aware of that.
Sorry, this would not get my vote as a "smart design". My conservative assumption is that submission from a non-encrypted page will be non-encrypted unless I have good evidence otherwise.
Re:Are you trying to say... (Score:2)
If you use Mozilla/Firefox, the Target Alert extension will show you. Yes, this doesn't fix the general case, but you can fix yourself
Re:Are you trying to say... (Score:2)
Re:Are you trying to say... (Score:2)
http://service1fcu.com/cuathome.php [service1fcu.com]
greeting card strategem (Score:4, Insightful)
It's twoo, it's twoo! (Score:5, Funny)
Gas lines (Score:3, Funny)
An alternative name... (Score:5, Funny)
They quickly discarded suggestions such as Black Monday (too much like Black Friday), Blue Monday (not very cheery), and Green Monday (too environmentalist), and settled on Cyber Monday.
I would call it - 'November's fools day'.
Re:An alternative name... (Score:2)
I was amused so much a few days ago while scanning headlines that I actually clicked one.
According to one "news outlet", people were lining up before 5 AM at a store to get great bargains.
That's just pathetic, and the only thing I can think of right now is what Homer said once he saw that the tree and the presents were gone: "Lisa, where did Christmas go?".
Re:An alternative name... (Score:2)
Re:An alternative name... (Score:2)
Or maybe it's a media event fuelled by the "if I don't get it now..." Pavlov situation.
Do you think the "thousands" of people worldwide that lined-up to get the first Xbox 360s were trading time for money?
Re:An alternative name... (Score:2)
My band would have loved that choice! Finally we'd be part of a media frenzy!
Re:An alternative name... (Score:2)
umm Cyber? Monday (Score:2, Funny)
Re:umm Cyber? Monday (Score:2)
Uh guys, It's was Deer Slaying Day.... (Score:3, Funny)
Sheesh...get it right.
It's kind of like Snake Whacking day...only with deer.
Watch out those antlers can be nasty!
Sean D.
Re:Uh guys, It's was Deer Slaying Day.... (Score:2)
The first Monday after Thanksgiving has always been and will always be Deer Slaying Day. Hell, we have off for work and school, just so we can go slay some of those fierce creatures.
Don't be fooled, Timmy: if given a chance that deer would kill you and everyone you care about.
It's kind of like Snake Whacking day...only with deer.
At least that would be a fair fight:
"Monday! MONDAY! MONDAY!! A knock-down, drag-out brawl between Homo Redneckien and a Deerus Pistofficus! It's antler vs whacking
Re:Uh guys, It's was Deer Slaying Day.... (Score:5, Funny)
My sister was once bitten by a moose.
Re:Uh guys, It's was Deer Slaying Day.... (Score:2, Funny)
Mind you, moose bites can be nasty.
Re:Uh guys, It's was Deer Slaying Day.... (Score:2)
Re:Uh guys, It's was Deer Slaying Day.... (Score:2)
Gee, neither I, my wife, nor my children have that Monday (yesterday) off. Do I need to take up hunting to get that day off? I do like venison.
Re:Uh guys, It's was Deer Slaying Day.... (Score:2)
Re:Uh guys, It's was Deer Slaying Day.... (Score:2, Informative)
Thanks slashdot, I just did a search for... (Score:2, Funny)
Strange... (Score:2, Funny)
Love Day (Score:5, Funny)
Lisa: "Come on Mom! The stores just invented this holiday because they wanted to make money!"
Homer: "Lisa don't you ruin another love day!"
For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! (Score:4, Insightful)
Most people meeting the last condition have the Friday after Turkey-day off from work, thus meeting the second condition. Most retail sales staff do not, thus meeting the first condition. And our annual Materialism-and-oh-yeah-that-dead-Jew festival provides the final condition, a reason to go shopping in the first place.
Shopping on-line changes all that. The store always has its virtual doors open. They always have what you want, even if you don't know you want something. You can even find things on the cheap, if you look around carefully. It eliminates three of the four constraints necessary for a "holiday" flood of shoppers to occur on a particular day. And for the only one remaining, we still have at least another 20 or so "shopping" days up to which Amazon will guarantee delivery by December 25th. So no rush.
The entire premise of a mad rush to shop on one particular day comes from the same minds that can't understand why we "abandon" 90% of shopping carts at online stores, after they force us to add items to a cart to see its price.
Nothing to see here, move along - Captain Obvious has struck again.
Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, even Black Friday is only the Fifth Largest Shopping Day [snopes.com] of the year. Apparently weekends leading up to Christmas are bigger, and I suspect that peaks in online shopping will occur based on when things can be shipped to get to people in time for Christmas. This year, wi
90% abandoned carts??? omg!!! (Score:2)
Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! (Score:2)
However, you missed touching on your last (and perhaps most important to the "lack of shopping this year") point:
There was a massive spike in US bankruptcy claims the 4th quarter of this year. This was mostly spurred on by the changes in laws around bankruptcy making it more difficult to do. So large was this spike that many credit card companies profits for 4th quarter are projected to be wiped out completely. With so many people declaring, their spend
Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! (Score:4, Insightful)
For the most part, I do respect people's religious beliefs. I will, to my dying death, argue in support of your right to believe in anything that makes you feel better about your relation to Life, The Universe, and Everything. So long as it doesn't directly affect me; for example if your beliefs tell you to blow me up, you have lost any claim on my "respect".
I won't, however, humor you about your particular choice of imaginary friend. I don't humor parents who lie to their kids about Santa and the Eostre Bunny, either (I don't go out of my way to disillusion them, but asking me a direct question such as "so what time do you think Santa visited last night" for the amusement of the wee ones will not have a good outcome). And I'll damn sure put my foot down when it comes to indoctrinating kids with FSM-worthy nonsense in direct contradiction with demonstrable facts.
Personally, I do believe in a creator deity, but I don't have the impudence (or ignorance) to claim I can ever "know" anything about that deity... Beyond the mere fact that I exist, or more accurately, that existance itself exists.
Now, if you happen to consider yourself a Christian, then you should feel offended by what I wrote. But not because of how I wrote it, rather, because I described the sad reality of your biggest religious festival. The material world has taken what should count as a joyous celebration of the birth of the son of your bhakti's god (time shifted to match the winter solstice, no doubt out of "respect" for those religions that held that as a holy day), and turned it into a day of worship of the jolly fat consumer of Coca Cola.
"Ford be praised!"
Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! (Score:2)
I think people who criticise the rampant "consumerism" of the holidays are short-sighted hypocrites who fail to realize that the only reason our quality of life is possible is precisely because of sai
Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! (Score:2)
Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! (Score:2)
I'm not sure I agree. My Christmas budget is around $1500. That's a sizeable chunk of my income that I don't think I'd have otherwise spent, particularly since a lot of it (as you mentioned) comes out of credit that gets paid off later. I mean, I spend money on birthday presents and whatnot throughout the year, but the "Christmas rush" tends to get consumers caught up
Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! (Score:3, Interesting)
Although this doesn't apply to privately held stores, at least any corporate retail chains have to report their earnings quarterly. And any non-R&D company that reported three out of four quarters in the red would find itself trading as penny stocks within just a few cycles of that.
Not to say tha
Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! (Score:2)
More likely is that for many stores the extra sales means that they cover the year's total costs around the end of November and every sale beyond the current would have much higher profi
Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! (Score:2)
No, I meant things like housing, energy, and healthy food, with enough leftover to build up a sizeable nest egg big enough to sustain that level of quality of life indefinitely into one's retirement years. People in "poor" countries don't have such luxuries, and instead must share cramped housing with large numbers of siblings, and parents must give up their independence
Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! (Score:3, Interesting)
You don't have kids yet do you. I hope whomever you have ruined x-mass won't return the favor. I guess you have never seen a kid's joy on the morning of x-mass or organizing the Easter egg hunt for 30 kids in the ne
Relax, we understand j00 (Score:2)
Someone got nothing but coal in their stocking every Christmas, huh?
Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! (Score:2)
Look at it this way: he's either dead but spiritually alive or hasn't even showed up yet. As I get older (and the fatter my belly becomes), I'm starting to believe more in buddhism.
Little kids and puppies like to touch my belly and that's pretty neat.
Re:For the same reason Black Friday *does* exist! (Score:2)
Every day is cyber -----day (Score:2)
Oh, just wait... (Score:3, Insightful)
The interesting question is, "Why the hype?" Or, more specifically, "Why do some people want it to exist?"
A related question is, "How can the entire media be manipulated to hype something that doesn't really exist?" Sounds *cough*WMD*cough* familiar, doesn't it?
Lemmings to the Internet (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course Cyber Monday doesn't exist, by way of the fact that you can shop at most e-tailers at any time, any day, and with advances in shipping, you can shop and get things delivered to you right up to Christmas day in most cases.
Of course some marketing person thought this up -- they thought up New Coke didn't they?
From Business Week: That's not to suggest that the Cyber Monday boost is a total fabrication. The fact is, people do most of their online shopping at work -- 58% of them, according to comScore Networks. They often get started in earnest on Mondays, when they return from a frustrating weekend at the mall to their broadband connections at work.
The fact is, many of us are smart enough not to buy into the hype of Black Friday, let alone Cyber Monday. I can shop online any time, from work, from home. It's easier to do from work because there's little chance of someone discovering what you're buying. Mind you, you have to be careful and actually work occasionally...
779,000 results? more like 300. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:779,000 results? more like 300. (Score:2)
Like the "nine months after" myths... (Score:3, Interesting)
Someone said, "Gee, I betcha there's a lot of online shopping when people get back to work and their high-speed internet connections" and the plausible and amusing speculation became a legend.
I actually was skeptical about this, because most e-commerce sites are quite usable even at dialup speeds, and, conversely, DSL and cable are far from rare.
It's not like the days when people had 28Kbps modems at home and T1s at work.
It would be very interesting if someone actually managed to track the "Cyber Monday" meme to its source. It might be possible, since it originated recently and probably spread mostly via the Internet.
Myth URL (Score:2)
http://www.snopes.com/pregnant/babtrain.htm [snopes.com]
i.e. here [snopes.com]
Re:Like the "nine months after" myths... (Score:2)
It would be very interesting if someone actually managed to track the "Cyber Monday" meme to its source. It might be possible, since it originated recently and probably spread mostly via the Internet.
The article you are replying to spends about half of its text describing in detail where the meme came from and what the motivations were of the creators!
Re:Like the "nine months after" myths... (Score:2)
Wait.. it was a SHOPPING day? (Score:2)
Hmm... it's gonna make the meeting with HR awkard this afternoon..
Black Friday was out Cyber Monday (stupid name!) (Score:2)
By Monday all the good deals are GONE!!!!
Most stores have the same sales online on Friday that they do in the stores and they start at midnight.. Just stay up after Thanksgiving (if you can, stupid Turkey). Hit Ben's Bargins & Fat Wallet then go shopping at midnight EST.
We scored everything we wanted and never set foot in the shopping nightmare at the mall.
I'm such a tool of the "man" (Score:2)
This has been my experience (Score:2)
Our sales Friday were the best ever for our "direct" business. Yesterday's orders (in front of me) are standard for the season, but nothing like "Black Friday".
Where is internet shopping this season? (Score:2)
I stood in line for an hour in the freezing cold on Thursday night, for the chance to save $30 on a Bluetooth headset at CompUSA (store opened at midnight). Unfortunately, there were 500 people in line ahead of me (and another 700 behind me), so ALL the good stuff was gone by the time I got into the store. I left empty-handed. I was going to get up early on Friday morning to stand in line, but after that experience, no way.
I have to wonder why internet retailers aren't trying to put the kibosh on
Wag the dog (Score:2, Informative)
cyber monday is very very real (Score:2)
I was wondering about this (Score:2)
Cyber monday is overhyped (Score:2, Informative)
Created a week and a half ago? Pfft! (Score:2)
Is that what it is? (Score:2)
Who knew it involved shopping too?
My niece called on the phone. (Score:5, Funny)
That'd be my dream. I told her that the only thing that was half off was women's clothing at myspace.com. She then asked me if I've ever shopped there before.
A Business Meme at Internet Speed (Score:2)
"Only" the twelfth? (Score:3, Insightful)
Hype (Score:3, Insightful)
--Okay, you can now mod this -1 Obvious.
It only has meaning to post T-Day Christians (Score:2)
It's just another day.
No. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you had bothered to read the article, you would have noticed that the sales data is based on non-Google research.
Re:What's Thanksgiving??? (Score:2)
Re:What's Thanksgiving??? (Score:2)
Re:What's Thanksgiving??? (Score:2)
Re:What's Thanksgiving??? (Score:2)
Re:Online shoppping (Score:2)
Re:Can we get rid of real monday too? (Score:2)
Re:Talliwhacker Tuesday! (Score:5, Funny)
Please contact me urgently about a large number of emails intended for you that have ended up in my inbox.