Black Friday and Cyber Monday: What is it All About?

It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas in November! With the sales shopping season being kick started with the seasonal Black Friday and Cyber Monday, no online or brick and mortar business can afford to miss out. However, what is it all about? 

The term ‘Black Friday’ was coined in the 1950’s in reference to the hordes of shoppers who descended on downtown Philadelphia USA to take advantage of the retail sales after Thanksgiving.  Folklore has it that it was the police who came up with term to describe their long shift, shopper mayhem and scores of traffic that they had to deal with on that day. However, to give it a positive spin retailers tried to re-brand it as ‘Big Friday’ and that never took off so they embraced Black Friday and it has evolved to what we know and see today

With the rise of the internet, another shopping holiday was born Cyber Monday. This marketing term was coined in 2005 by the USA’s National Retail Federation for online retailers so that they had their own version of Black Friday which was for brick-and-mortar stores. Since then, Cyber Monday has exploded in popularity.  

So, are you #BFCM ready?

 

Want to know more?

Preparing for the Black Friday / Cyber Monday sales? Why not check out this 9-point checklist here