Deal and sale are the best kind of four-letter word. Everywhere you look during the holiday shopping season, there are BOGO offers, Doorbusters, daily deals, 20% off deals and end-of-year promotions to be enjoyed. Sometimes shopping can even feel a little like a sport, with the most dedicated among us plotting their best course, tracking the offers and strategically shopping their way to discounted victory.
Some of the best-known shopping days full of deals are Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Green Monday. Do you know how these “holidays” came to be?
Stories abound about the roots of Black Friday, which wasn’t always referring to the retail celebration we know and love. Mental Floss tells us that the name “Black Friday” dates back to Philadelphia in the mid-1960s. The traditional Army-Navy football game that’s played in that city on the Saturday after Thanksgiving was creating a bustling crowd for retailers in the city but was a huge pain for police officers, cab drivers, and anyone who had to navigate the city’s streets. They started referring to the annual day of commercial bedlam as “Black Friday” to reflect how irritating it was. Fast-forward to the 1980s, however, and retailers wanted to put a positive spin on this day, which reliably brought a day of real profit to their balance sheets. Since accountants record profits in black ink, Black Friday became a positive term for profitability.
The roots of Cyber Monday are a little more straightforward, according to Reader’s Digest. We have the National Retail Federation (NRF) to thank for this term, which was coined in a press release in 2005. After noticing a recurring spike in online revenue and traffic on the Monday following Thanksgiving, the NRF drew a conclusion that people were shopping from their computers at work, where the Internet connections were faster and they would have privacy from prying eyes. While Cyber Monday became more recognized each year after that, and shoppers bought into more and more deals and discounts, it wasn’t until 2014 that it became the biggest online shopping day in the country, raking in over $2 billion in sales. Each year since, the bar has been raised.
Then there’s Green Monday, an online shopping event that typically falls on the second Monday of December. It’s known as the last chance to order gifts from your favorite online retailers and have them shipped directly to your home and loved ones in time for the holidays. The Chicago Tribune reports that eBay coined the term “Green Monday” in 2009, referring to their most profitable sales day of that December. While we often relate “green” to something environmental or eco-friendly, in this instance it represents the financial savings customers receive and the returns online retailers enjoy during this busy holiday shopping period.
Speaking of financial savings, Purchasing Power will be running some amazing deals in the days and weeks ahead, so be sure to check the site daily and even hourly. You never know when a surprise deal may pop up!
