If you’ve spent 5 minutes on the Internet around Thanksgiving in the last couple of years, you probably know what Cyber Monday is. But, just in case you’re unclear on this fairly new shopping day, here is what it is.
In short, Cyber Monday is an opportunity for online retailers to get in on the post-Thanksgiving shopping madness. Large national chains offer their door busters and biggest sales on Black Friday, local retailers do something similar the next day on Small Business Saturday, and the Monday following Thanksgiving is when you can score great deals from online retailers.
You’ve probably also noticed that online retailers don’t usually stay in their lane on this and start their Cyber Monday offers the week before Thanksgiving.
Believe it or not, Cyber Monday hit the scene before Small Business Saturday. The first usage of the term was in 2005 and it was actually promoted by the National Retail Federation.
Back then, the intent was for online retailers, which were smaller, to have a chance to compete for post-Thanksgiving dollars that were going almost exclusively to national chains.
Obviously, Amazon has changed the online retail quite a bit since then and the tables have turned as brick and mortar retailers are now the ones struggling to keep up with their online counterparts.
