However begrudgingly, the banks and the post offices are open the day after Thanksgiving, because the government says they can’t close more than three days in a row. Holiday-happy retailers follow the government’s lead, although their payoff is way stronger that any paltry federal law. It’s called Black Friday, and it has its name for a reason, although the explanation isn’t always what you want to hear. One death and one miscarriage occurred in 2008 as a Walmart store opened for the day in New York state; in 2011, a man collapsed and died at a West Virginia Target while fellow shoppers stepped over the guy and went about their chores. There’s even a website, blackfridaydeathcount.com, that tracks the grisly details on the heels of our national day of gratitude.
Meanwhile, for better or worse, Black Friday reflects a staple of Christmas commercialism. The “black” part, coined in the 1960s, refers to profit, as in the black ink that adorns the retailers’ books the day after (red, of course, means loss). 32-inch TVs for $78; high-end vacuum cleaners for $250; $18 for the popular Furby robotic toy: Mega-deals like these await shoppers hardy enough to man the waiting lines as early as 5 a.m. at the big-box places (some stores are even open on Thanksgiving). And there’s more where that came from. Black Friday has kind of morphed into a mega-week amid the convenience of the Internet, running from the Tuesday before Thanksgiving through the whole weekend.
Which brings us to Cyber Monday, the era’s erstwhile electronic counterpart. USA Today says sales on this day, the Monday after Thanksgiving, will “crush” Black Friday this year — Black Friday sales, it turns out, were down in 2013 as the Cyber Monday peeps slash prices even further.
“Based on my deal lists last year,” USA consumer correspondent Matt Granite said, “I saw a 105 percent increase on Cyber Monday over Black Friday. Last year, 92 million people shopped on Black Friday, while 131 million people shopped on Cyber Monday. That trend is expected to continue this year.” Cyber Monday, Granite continued, does not have the same Black Friday stock issues. Since stores are not tied to hardcopy advertising scans, they can shift merchandise and offer great reductions throughout the day. And Cyber Monday doesn’t corner the market on deals; depending on what you read, the Saturday after Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving itself post some of the best numbers among shoppers who’ve come to trust their vendors’ claims about site security and whose accessibility to the Internet places them in charge of their shopping on a number of fronts.
I’ve been a cybershopper since 2010, and I’ve never had a single delivery or availability issue (except once, when a very hard-to-find book was out of stock; it was resupplied a little after 1 a.m., while you lazies were asleep). True, the physical stores do a remarkable job bending over backward as they battle the Internet in efficiency of service and fulfillment of demand, and there’s something to be said for the extra effort in traipsing to a flesh-and-blood venue in the interest of domestic peace on Dec. 25.
But truly, it’s not the effort that counts; it’s the thought. And I, for one, thus categorically deny that today’s swirl of electronic commerce fuels the alienation among our countrymen, regardless of the time of year or the gift under debate.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to kiss my girlfriend’s website good night.
