Today is Cyber Monday, not nearly as famous as the warm embrace of Thanksgiving, nor as infamous as Black Friday. (On that note, we at STS hope that everyone had a very happy Thanksgiving and enjoyable weekend!) So what is Cyber Monday, where did it come from, and what does it mean?
As you might guess, Cyber Monday is a relatively new pseudo-holiday that has been around in concept for a while. Many people will spend hundreds, even thousands of dollars on Black Friday searching for deals on electronics, toys, clothing, cars...basically anything anyone could ever ask for as a Christmas gift. But Cyber Monday is a special day for all the people who are not able to shop around for gifts on Black Friday in person, whether it's from lack of transportation, health reasons, or you just don't want to deal with the crazy people at the stores. It was first used in a press release from Shop.org on November 28, 2005. The title was "Cyber Monday Quickly Becoming One of the Biggest Online Shopping Days of the Year." How right that was! It's now the #1 single day of online shopping during the year.
Cyber Monday is a special day for anyone who has ever shopped online. Sales have steadily been increasing by 16-22% each year since 2006, excepting the year 2009 (sales then increased only by 5%, most likely a result of the recession from the year before). In 2012, the sales from Cyber Monday alone were almost $1.5 billion! Online retailers like Amazon have taken advantage of the cyber trend, and now offer special Cyber Monday deals to tempt even more shoppers to their webpages instead of the physical stores. As much as I love to window shop and find the perfect gift, it's a lot less effort, time, and money to look it up online.
Of course these numbers are not without consequence. Since Cyber Monday is the Monday after a long Thanksgiving weekend, the idea is that workers come back to a high-speed internet at their workplaces and buy what they like, usually for cheaper. In 2009, more than half of the dollars spent online originated from work computers. This is becoming more and more dangerous for the average employee to do, however. 22% of employers asked said that they had terminated an employee for using the internet for non-work related activities (though the activities in question were not specified, and could have been Facebook), 7% had fired an employee for holiday shopping, and 54% of employers were blocking certain websites. Talk about buyer beware!
Cyber Monday is not just for Americans anymore either; Canada adopted its own Cyber Monday in 2008, mostly to discourage Canadian money from being spent on US retailers. Other countries that participate in Cyber Monday (origin year) include the United Kingdom (2012), Germany (2010), Portugal (2009), France (2008), Chile (2011), New Zealand (2010), Colombia (2012), Australia (2012), Japan (2012), and India (2012). Not all these countries call it Cyber Monday, but the intent is the same: buy items online, save money, have a good holiday season.
That just about wraps up not only this blog post, but the Fall 2013 semester at Hopkins as well. This is the last week of classes, and soon Reading Period and Finals will start. This may not be the last post before break, but just in case:
JHU Student Technology Services student employees and staff wish all of our readers a very happy holiday season and a special, bright new year in 2014! Thank you for reading our blog.
As you might guess, Cyber Monday is a relatively new pseudo-holiday that has been around in concept for a while. Many people will spend hundreds, even thousands of dollars on Black Friday searching for deals on electronics, toys, clothing, cars...basically anything anyone could ever ask for as a Christmas gift. But Cyber Monday is a special day for all the people who are not able to shop around for gifts on Black Friday in person, whether it's from lack of transportation, health reasons, or you just don't want to deal with the crazy people at the stores. It was first used in a press release from Shop.org on November 28, 2005. The title was "Cyber Monday Quickly Becoming One of the Biggest Online Shopping Days of the Year." How right that was! It's now the #1 single day of online shopping during the year.
Cyber Monday is a special day for anyone who has ever shopped online. Sales have steadily been increasing by 16-22% each year since 2006, excepting the year 2009 (sales then increased only by 5%, most likely a result of the recession from the year before). In 2012, the sales from Cyber Monday alone were almost $1.5 billion! Online retailers like Amazon have taken advantage of the cyber trend, and now offer special Cyber Monday deals to tempt even more shoppers to their webpages instead of the physical stores. As much as I love to window shop and find the perfect gift, it's a lot less effort, time, and money to look it up online.
Of course these numbers are not without consequence. Since Cyber Monday is the Monday after a long Thanksgiving weekend, the idea is that workers come back to a high-speed internet at their workplaces and buy what they like, usually for cheaper. In 2009, more than half of the dollars spent online originated from work computers. This is becoming more and more dangerous for the average employee to do, however. 22% of employers asked said that they had terminated an employee for using the internet for non-work related activities (though the activities in question were not specified, and could have been Facebook), 7% had fired an employee for holiday shopping, and 54% of employers were blocking certain websites. Talk about buyer beware!
Cyber Monday is not just for Americans anymore either; Canada adopted its own Cyber Monday in 2008, mostly to discourage Canadian money from being spent on US retailers. Other countries that participate in Cyber Monday (origin year) include the United Kingdom (2012), Germany (2010), Portugal (2009), France (2008), Chile (2011), New Zealand (2010), Colombia (2012), Australia (2012), Japan (2012), and India (2012). Not all these countries call it Cyber Monday, but the intent is the same: buy items online, save money, have a good holiday season.
That just about wraps up not only this blog post, but the Fall 2013 semester at Hopkins as well. This is the last week of classes, and soon Reading Period and Finals will start. This may not be the last post before break, but just in case:
JHU Student Technology Services student employees and staff wish all of our readers a very happy holiday season and a special, bright new year in 2014! Thank you for reading our blog.
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