OPINION: Top 7 reasons why Cyber Monday differs from Black Friday

There used to be one shopping holiday in the calendar: Black Friday. It has always been a great chance to grab products at attractive prices for customers, and for stores to make profit. That’s where the name comes from: the black ink indicating profits, instead of red ink suggesting losses. But, nothing lasts forever and in the last decade a secondary shopping holiday around this time has arrived: Cyber Monday.

Cyber Monday is to online shopping what Black Friday is to in-store shopping, with amazing deals available in just a few clicks. How are the two events different? Or are they at all? Let’s take a look.

1. The Doorbuster Deals

There is little doubt that the reason Black Friday is such a hit comes in the form of the so-called doorbuster deals. They always offer a great discount from the full price, always have limited stock and are available for a limited time. As a result, they have customers nearly literally bursting through the door. Their purpose is largely dual. Alongside selling good merchandise at a reduced price, the doorbuster deals can help draw the customers’ attention to a wide range of other deals the store offers.

Due to their online nature, Cyber Monday does not have anything like doorbuster deals, but its advantages lie elsewhere.

2. Cyber Monday Saves Your Time

Online shopping has a massive advantage: it saves your time. You don’t have to spend precious time (and decrease your chances of getting what you want) travelling from one store to another to compare prices. Similarly, all the deals are available at a couple mouse clicks.

Doing your massive shopping during Cyber Monday is fast and efficient. Comparing prices takes seconds when all you have to do is switch tabs in your browser, even less when you use any of the online tools dedicated to comparing the retail prices of all manners of products, from fridges to video games.

3. Different Scope of Discounts

Among the main conceptual differences between Black Friday and Cyber Monday is how they go about discounts. For Black Friday, the sales are usually product-specific. For example, discounts for this kind of TV, or this particular blender. This is a great chance for customers to scout for the item they have been searching for a long time.

On the other hand Cyber Monday usually offers retailer—or manufacturer/developer—wide discounts, perfect for people who are looking to buy a product of a particular kind, but are not picky about the manufacturer. At the same time enthusiasts of video games have just a few other chances to get several games from a single developer and complete the collection.

4. Surprise Sales

Black Friday often holds surprise sales, unannounced but just as attractive offers, with some luck can help you get much more out of Black Friday shopping. This is a stroke of luck, that the toaster or jacket you missed by not going to another store suddenly is available as a surprise offer at the store you went for the TV you needed. This is something most online stores do not offer, since it is not as easy to advertise them to customers as it is for brick-and-mortar stores. There are flash sales, of course, but they aren’t quite as enticing as Black Friday surprises.

5. Shopping on Cyber Mondays is Less Impulsive

Shopping in-store is an experience. This is especially the case during Black Friday, where there are dozens or hundreds of other people all aiming to get the best of the chance. It is very easy to get caught up in the spending frenzy and buy much more than was initially planned.

Cyber Monday is the way out of this problem. Looking for deals from the convenience of your computer chair, with a greater selection of offers from several different retailers makes for more reasonable, balanced decisions. It is much harder to overspend when there aren’t other people present forcing you to grab products preemptively before there are none left.

6. Competition

Sometimes, however, both Black Friday and Cyber Monday force the harsh reality: the supply isn’t infinite. While Cyber Monday retailers have often much vaster warehouses, the products are available for customers from around the nation or even the world, benefiting from the global nature of the Internet. On the other hand, Black Friday stores have reasonably smaller supply, but also the number of customers on any given instance is much smaller, and many of them come for very specific products while leaving others untouched.

In the end it is the difference of scale. Global competition for bigger supply, or local struggle for smaller one.

7. Black Friday Requires Waking Up Early

For many people having to wake up early and camp outside the store is a vital part of the experience, but for others it is a dealbreaker. Being the first in line when the shop opens is the only real guarantee that there will be some doorbuster deals still available. Meanwhile for Cyber Monday the only time restraint is that your boss may not look favorably at you scouting for deals during work!

Overall, Black Friday and Cyber Monday offer largely different experiences, both in the manner the shopping is done, and what kind of offers are available. It is up to the customer to decide which is the better one, shift from one to the other based on what is needed, or just take advantage of both events.