What in the heck have Black Friday and Cyber Monday become?
They've become nothing more than buzzwords, and quite frankly, it's pissing me off. It's hard to imagine that I'd miss the pre-internet days, when "Black Friday" meant herds of people at retail stores, waiting in line for "Doorbusters", featuring the inevitable annual local news "trampling" story. But alas, here I am...
And when "Cyber Monday" came along, I was a reluctant participant, favoring it over Black Friday merely because shopping from the comfort of my laptop was much more safe and saved hours of wasted time in traffic and checkout lines.
At least back then I was complaining about actual sales with a distinct purpose. Today, I'm complaining because these sales are a nonsensical farce. The words themselves hold very little weight. It's like the boy who cried wolf but the stores are the boy and they're shouting "Black Friday!". How long until we all stop listening?
I think it will either take a generational shift- the marketing only works because of the 30+ crowd who remembers the nostalgia of when BF/CM actually meant something. Don't get me wrong -- there are definitely a lot of good deals to be had -- but they've got nothing to do about a day of the week or being online/offline.
I think we should group all Black Friday & Cyber Monday deals under a new term: "Q4Busters". It replaces the old "Doorbusters" terminology and gives companies runway to start their dumb "Black Friday" promotions on October 1st without fear of being fake news.
Who else has gotten exhaustively sick of the intentionally negligent use of Black Friday and Cyber Monday to the point that their meanings have been dilluted into nothingness? What's an irritated consumer to do beyond complain?
Don't forget: Cyber Monday was invented in 2005 by the National Retail Federation, so it's very possible to coin something new to cure this new retail sickness. However, not all attempts go so well: other efforts have included Green Monday, Buy Nothing Day, Small Business Saturday, Super Saturday, Giving Tuesday, and Singles' Day.
- Black Friday "sales" started weeks early this year
- Many products are marked way up purely to show huge savings
- Cyber Monday deals started on Saturday
- Cyber Monday "deals" are the same as Black Friday deals... they just did a "Find & Replace" for Black Friday
They've become nothing more than buzzwords, and quite frankly, it's pissing me off. It's hard to imagine that I'd miss the pre-internet days, when "Black Friday" meant herds of people at retail stores, waiting in line for "Doorbusters", featuring the inevitable annual local news "trampling" story. But alas, here I am...
And when "Cyber Monday" came along, I was a reluctant participant, favoring it over Black Friday merely because shopping from the comfort of my laptop was much more safe and saved hours of wasted time in traffic and checkout lines.
At least back then I was complaining about actual sales with a distinct purpose. Today, I'm complaining because these sales are a nonsensical farce. The words themselves hold very little weight. It's like the boy who cried wolf but the stores are the boy and they're shouting "Black Friday!". How long until we all stop listening?
I think it will either take a generational shift- the marketing only works because of the 30+ crowd who remembers the nostalgia of when BF/CM actually meant something. Don't get me wrong -- there are definitely a lot of good deals to be had -- but they've got nothing to do about a day of the week or being online/offline.
I think we should group all Black Friday & Cyber Monday deals under a new term: "Q4Busters". It replaces the old "Doorbusters" terminology and gives companies runway to start their dumb "Black Friday" promotions on October 1st without fear of being fake news.
Who else has gotten exhaustively sick of the intentionally negligent use of Black Friday and Cyber Monday to the point that their meanings have been dilluted into nothingness? What's an irritated consumer to do beyond complain?
Don't forget: Cyber Monday was invented in 2005 by the National Retail Federation, so it's very possible to coin something new to cure this new retail sickness. However, not all attempts go so well: other efforts have included Green Monday, Buy Nothing Day, Small Business Saturday, Super Saturday, Giving Tuesday, and Singles' Day.
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