Did You Shop?

Just wondering if any of you went shopping on Black Friday last week either online or by going to retail stores. And, did you shop online shop on Cyber Monday.

Personally speaking, neither Grenville or myself shopped on either day. We were out-of-state celebrating Thanksgiving with family members from NJ and PA. A couple of the younger family members went outlet shopping. We went to a holiday show instead.

Black Friday is the name given to the shopping day after Thanksgiving and refers to being in the profit zone compared to being in the red which indicates losses. So, Black Friday means "profitable Friday" to retailers and the economy. 

Philadelphia, PA is considered the home of the term. That's because in the mid-1960s, the Philadelphia Police Department coined the phrase to describe the mayhem surrounding the congestion of pedestrian and auto traffic in the downtown Center City area where stores were mobbed from opening to closing. There were numerous traffic accidents and sometimes even violence occurred.

Black Friday bargain hunters still present problems for law enforcement. The states with the most reported incidents of violence on this day are Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana,  Nevada and Tennessee  By comparison, the safest holiday shopping is reportedly in the Midwest, Pacific Northwest, and New England.

Retailers didn't like the negative connotation associated with this shopping day, especially since the media used it to describe stock market crashes. The term "Black Friday" was used to describe October 19, 1986 when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 22 percent. This was the largest percentage drop in one day in U.S. stock market history. Retailers wanted "Black Friday" to mean something positive and changed the name to reflect success vs. disaster. 

According to market analysts, retailers can expect a very successful 2018 holiday shopping season kicked off by Black Friday. The 2018 holiday shopping season is expected to exhibit the strongest growth since 2011, a 6 percent increase over last year. Online Black Friday sales were 24 percent above last year’s levels, reaching a record $6.2 billion according to analytical firms in the know. 

It should come as no surprise that the term “Cyber Monday” was created by marketing executives to encourage people to shop online. Research conducted in 2004 showed that the Monday after Thanksgiving was quickly becoming one of the biggest online shopping days of the year

In November 2005, Ellen Davis, senior vice president of the National Retail Federation (NRF) coined “Cyber Monday” with her colleague Scott Silverman, executive director of Shop.org, the digital division of the NRF. The day was promoted in a Shop.org press release, "'Cyber Monday Quickly Becoming One of the Biggest Online Shopping Days of the Year" and a marketing campaign soon followed.

The campaign has obviously been a BIG hit with consumers. This year, Cyber Monday is projected to be the highest-selling day of the 2018 holiday season with $7.8 billion in online sales. 

We didn't miss shopping in retail stores or online last Friday or on Monday. There's still time for finding deals and we're focusing on experiences vs. things. So, on Black Friday, we enjoyed The First Noel holiday show at the American Music Theatre in Lancaster, PA.

It was a great way to spend a few hours and to get into the holiday mood. Many thanks for the pre-Thanksgiving wishes last week. We hope that your celebration was filled with good times with family, friends and also good food as was our own.