Cyber Monday: A Brief History of the Biggest Holiday for eCommerce

If you think about it, it’s kind of like the Christmas of eCommerce! To those who celebrate, we wish you an abundant and stress-free Cyber Monday.

Team Virid is celebrating by giving you the gift of knowledge! Let’s discuss how this day came to be, and we’ll throw in a few tips on how to prepare for –possibly– your busiest day of the year.  

The History of Black Friday 

On September 24, 1869, the United States gold market suffered a financial crisis. Two conniving Wall Street bankers sought out to buy as much gold as possible to hike up the price and sell it back to the public to turn an impossible profit.

When the plan was finally revealed that Friday, a huge portion of the country had already gone bankrupt. This is the first noted story that is referenced when recalling the history of Black Friday and there are many others.

The most popular story is that retailers would spend the majority of the year losing money, otherwise known as being “in the red” just waiting for shoppers to spend exorbitant amounts on their holiday shopping sprees resulting in profit margins moving “into the black” thus earning the phrase Black Friday.

This telling of the history of Black Friday is not actually the reason the day came to be, however. In the 1950’s, every year on the Saturday after Thanksgiving an Army-Navy football game was held in Philadelphia, resulting in hordes of suburban tourists –and holiday shoppers– flooding into the city on Friday to watch the game and cause chaos for local law enforcement.

The term Black Friday was named by local police, as they braced themselves for long shifts and lots of rambunctious sports lovers on that Friday every year. The phrase didn’t manage to catch on to the rest of the country until the late 80’s, as retailers decided to fight the negative connotation behind the term “Black Friday” and instead turn it into something more profitable.

Retailers started to adopt the phrase in reference to the “red to black” story we heard about earlier, as this time signaled the first real profits of the year for many businesses, and thus, America eventually forgot all about what happened in Philadelphia.  

What is Cyber Monday? 

Just like Black Friday, “Cyber Monday” was created as a result of consumer behavior. The National Retail Federation coined the phrase in 2005 as they noticed consumers continue their holiday shopping the Monday after Black Friday while at work, usually because their internet connection was stronger there.

Walmart debuted their website in 2000 and online shopping continued to become popular in the following years, as eCommerce continued to grow, especially retailers like Amazon that existed exclusively online sought to capitalize on the traffic that came with Black Friday and thus Cyber Monday was born.  

So Long Cyber Monday! Enter “Cyber Five” 

In 2019, data from the National Retail Federation revealed that Black Friday was a more successful day for online shopping than Cyber Monday. This pattern continued in the following years. As the pandemic made in-person shopping more difficult, online shopping is becoming the preferred medium for consumers to cash in on holiday deals.

Now that Black Friday has expanded even past the weekend, retailers are now referring to the event as “Cyber Five” including Thanksgiving Day all throughout Cyber Monday and advertisers are now pushing Cyber Monday as a “last chance” for shoppers to take advantage of the sales from Black Friday, regardless of their shopping preferences.  

Predictions for 2024 

Data pulled from Numerator says that 84% of shoppers took advantage of Cyber Five deals, with lots of consumers shopping both in store and online. Some predictions for this year include that online shopping will dominate the majority of Cyber Five sales. Also, many predict that consumers will spend more as unit prices have increased significantly from last year.

We can also deduce that shopping will shift even earlier than the Cyber Five event, as many retailers such as Amazon begin running sales events in the weeks prior. Some even predict that a large portion of shoppers will take advantage of the discounts to shop for themselves, which has been a pattern, especially with the economic uncertainty to come next year.  

Though Cyber Monday has become obsolete, we welcome in an era of eCommerce unlike anyone has ever experienced. With that, however, consumers are expecting a lot from their shopping experience and that means more work for developers.

Team Virid wishes you luck whether you’re shopping or preparing for your busiest sales of the year, or both! When the final drops of your code freeze melt away, we hope they reveal your biggest profits yet, and if your website couldn’t take the heat, Virid can help. So, how are you celebrating the holiday?