It’s November already, which means that the time of big shopping is approaching. With the boom of online and offline commerce around the world, most countries have embraced the sacred American tradition of arranging two days of grand discounts – Black Friday and Cyber Monday, both coming after the Thanksgiving Day celebration.
But before you dream of buying the gadget or clothing of your dream and already prepare for its postal tracking in your dreams, let’s clarify what the difference between these two days of sales are, and which of them promises more attractive deals to the aspiring shoppers.
Black Friday
The Black Friday sale has a long history in the USA, borrowed by retailers across the globe in recent decades. It traditionally starts after the Thanksgiving festivities are over, ushering the thrilling period of Christmas present preparation. Since the process of buying gifts for the winter holidays is a sweet tradition people like, retailers compete for the attraction of more buyers with some striking deals for long-wanted products.
There is no fixed date for Thanksgiving Day, so Black Friday is also a flexible event with changing dates. This year, the Turkey fest takes place on Thursday, November 28, and the next day is the day awaited by all crazy shoppers – November 29, Black Friday. Correspondingly, in 2019, the Cyber Monday event will take place around the globe on the 2nd of December.
Source: HuffPost
Cyber Monday
While Black Friday initially emerged as a big sales day for attracting shoppers to retail stores, Cyber Monday quickly followed to continue the crazy discount tradition online. The Cyber Monday sale is a much younger tradition, counting only about two decades in age, dating back to the dawn of online shopping. Today, with a lion share of all shopping transactions taking place online; however, the difference between the Friday and Monday sales days is gradually reducing. On both sales days, all deals are available both online and offline, with the only distinction, probably, that Cyber Monday deals are still exclusively tied to e-commerce.
Source: Business Insider
When Is It Better to Shop?
So, given that both sales are actually the same, which day is better for the most lucrative shopping? Experienced buyers share some observations and hacks regarding these two sales events:
- Cyber Monday deals are most often even more lucrative than Black Friday ones, with the merchants reducing prices even further to hit their sales targets in case they didn’t sell enough merchandise during the Black Friday shopping craze.
- Nevertheless, if you aim to buy some highly demanded, popular items such as a newly released gadget or an item from a new clothing collection, then it’s better to agree to what the Black Friday offer is. Some demanded products are completely sold out minutes after the launch of the operations, so you risk remaining without the desired product for weeks, if not months until the merchant replenishes its stock after the devastation.
- Even if you see a good discount for your desired product on any of these sales days, it’s better to check the price history before taking out your debit card. What if the merchant has intentionally been raising the price for some item weeks before Black Friday just to offer a discount that is not a discount at all? It’s always better to track the price to see whether you have a chance to get the item even cheaper days after the Black Friday craze ends.
- Shopping is really toxic; once you see dramatic discounts on things you didn’t need a second ago, sometimes you just can’t resist the low price. As a result, you end up buying tons of unnecessary trash instead of getting 1-2 things you really wanted. What’s the catch? Prepare for the BF/CM shopping well – make a list of products you look for, lust several merchants that you prefer to buy from, and never look at anything unrelated before you complete the shopping. If you manage to save a couple of bucks on great deals and have some spare cash, it’s always possible to buy additional products at the end.
Source: Interpro Translation Solutions
How be Will My Purchase Shipped?
Some people are worried that their purchases may get lost in the fuss and haste of massive shopping taking place during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals. Indeed, such a risk exists since the retailers face a disproportionate increase in sales and warn their customers in advance that the process of items delivery may take longer than usual.
However, if you are well-prepared and track postal package from the start of its journey until its arrival to your doorstep, the chances of losing it are very tiny. Ask the merchant for a tracking number, use it in an automated postal tracking system like Pkge.net, and rest assured that your parcel is intact, traveling to you. At Pkge.net, you can insert more than one track order number at the same time, storing all your shipments in one cabinet and receiving timely updates about the change of their statuses. Lucky shopping this year!
