From Black Friday to Cyber Monday
I screen the best Black Friday and Cyber Monday coupon offers at:
http://www.CouponBella.org/Black-Friday-Coupons.htm
and
http://www.CouponBella.org/Cyber-Monday-Coupons.htm including web-buster deals from Macys.com, Walmart.com, and Sears.com and great Cyber Monday deals, coupons and discount offers from Zales.com, DiscoveryStore.com, Overstock.com, Shoes.com, VistaPrint.com and ShopNBC.com.
For those in the retail industry and anyone listening to the media hype, you’ve heard the phrase “Black Friday.” Apparently the name "Black Friday” was coined in the 1970’s because of the heavy traffic on that Friday after Thanksgiving. Nowadays, I’ve heard it explained as the start of the period when retailers are “in the black” (turning a profit) rather than “in the red” (losing money). While it makes for catchy media friendly terminology, I think it is more media hype rather than reality.
Similarly, the retail industry and Shop.org coined the term “Cyber Monday” in 2005 and obviously the term has caught on as the media and shoppers all use the term “Cyber Monday” as though it has been around for decades. I think this was another great marketing idea to get shoppers whipped up into a frenzy to start shopping early rather than waiting until the last minute.
However, I like Cyber Monday because it helps stimulate and spur competition amongst retailer for limited consumer dollars that need to be spent getting the most bang for their buck. And for those online retailers willing to give good online offers, they can take away customers from the brick and mortar stores if they are willing to offer really good discounts, coupon codes and promotional offers.
So the “key” to successful shopping on Cyber Monday is to
pre-shop so that you know what you want to buy and the “regular
price” so that you can determine if a Cyber Monday discount, coupon
or promotional offer really is a good deal or if it is just a
over-hyped “regular discount price.” Of course such comparison
shopping is often an art more than a science and it takes a lot of
time. So to help you find the best offers, I spend Saturday screening the best coupon offers at
http://www.CouponBella.org/Black-Friday-Coupons.htm.
In any case, whether it is marketing magic, consumer reality or somewhere in between, I fully support anything that helps people shop and enjoy the finer things in life that they want for themselves and their families and friends. Someday, I fully expect “Christmas In July” to become a retail phenomenon just like in the Curious George cartoon. Of course, it won’t be called Christmas, but the retailers would love to give consumers another major holiday and reason to shop and give gifts to everyone.
For those of you who are not familiar with this particular Curious George episode, George “gets a job” at a small grocery store in July and decorates the store window with Christmas decorations rather than a summer beach theme. The customers love the Christmas decorations in July and sales increase thanks to Curious George’s Christmas in July. But until that time comes, I guess we will all have to make due with just one major holiday shopping season each year.
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