Rash Shopping Decisions

It seems that the media loves to create buzzwords or to use buzzwords or phrases that are meant to encapsulate a certain feeling, emotion or event. Early on in the Vietnam War many began to throw the word quagmire around as a reference to the fact that the war was continuing without any 'clear' indication of progress or victory. Soon after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began the media again began to use slogans to rally (or stifle) support fot the wars. But don't get me wrong; not all slogans are used to gain or lose support for wars but for human behavior as well. What behavior would that be? Why shopping of course. For the last few decades the term Black Friday has been thrown around to describe the day after Thanksgiving and all the buzz surrounding the supposed sales that kick off at that time. However most people tend not to associate it with the dubious origins of the phrase and for good reason too.

The term 'Black Friday' was first used in 1869 to describe the financial failure that occurred in the stock market that year. It occurred on a Friday and hence the expression 'black Friday'. Later on the expression came to be associated with two different understandings of the ettiquette of shopping. Firstly it became associated with the time when retailers would first begin printing their shopping ads full of sales and specials for the Christmas shopping season. Typically this was witheld until after Thanksgiving and since no retailer wanted to break tradition this was held for many years until retailers began to realize that they were losing potential business by waiting for so long so in order to help the economy (as part of his efforts to help break the Great Depression) so this led to Franklin Roosevelt moving Thanksgiving up by a week.

The day after Thanksgiving came to be known as Black Friday in more popular parlance due to the fact (and understanding) that sales were expected to be so high that retailers would be in the 'black' (vice being in the 'red' which would indicate a loss). Now when I was growing up there was certainly hype surrounding the day after Thanksgiving sales and deals that would be available to shoppers but I don't ever recall it being so....crazy. I mean there are websites and organizations set up to break the news on who will have the best deals on what merchandise beginning on Friday. Stores and malls often open at midnight in order to get people excited with the hype and hopefully once again ready to spend. I have seen people lined up outside of stores like Wal-Mart and Best Buy as early as 4:00 on Thursday afternoon in order to be among the first into the store on Friday (be it at midnight or 10:00 the next morning).

Now retailers are geared up for today which (since about 2005) is Cyber Monday. The origin of this term comes from the rise in online retailers. Sites like Amazon make it much easier to comparison shop and find really good deals. The logic being that people will go and browse to their heart's content over the Thanksgiving holiday and then begin shopping and comparing prices on Monday online. Hence the moniker 'Cyber Monday'. According to some news outlets it is the busiest shopping day 'online' and sales are expected to be even higher on this day as opposed to Fridays nowadays. And for the life of me I can't figure out why? I mean I won't deny there are great deals to be had on items but is it really that big a deal? Most of this merchandise has been sitting in stores for weeks, months and sometimes longer. No one has been ready to buy it up until this point. The reason being that it is either not the best product for the price or the company is looking to clear inventory. But nowadays if you chalk it up as a after-Thanksgiving bargain then you'll have people lined up out the door?

Why? Why is there such a rush to get in on a deal? Is it because we are by nature a very competitive species? I mean if you ask yourself, isn't there a sense of fulfillment in the fact that you can get your hands on something that someone else can't? If there wasn't that competitive nature built into us would we actually be looking to line up to get movie tickets for weeks ahead of them going on sale (and no this isn't limited to 'Star Wars' fans). Would we fight tooth and nail with fellow shoppers over televisions and DVD/Blu-Ray players? Would we trample people to death at stores simply to ensure that we get something that someone else wanted? Part of the reason for the current financial crisis in our country is the fact that we have overspent ourselves in this competitive market (and I'm not talking competitive in terms of retailers... I'm talking about shoppers). The perception of a deal or a day of deals (i.e., Black Friday or Cyber Monday) means that by our very nature we'll want to make sure we also get in on the deal. That's even if we don't have the money to do it. Isn't credit a wonderful thing?