Sales still going strong for Cyber ‘Week’

They began on Cyber Monday, which fell on Nov. 27, and come Monday, Dec. 4, a full seven days after those sales began, the markdown cyber sales showed little sign of easing up any time soon.

If anything, the sales seemed to get even better, with ever greater markdowns now available for those who managed to hold out that long.

With Cyber Monday and Cyber Week (or Two) such common parts of our vocabulary today, it’s hard to imagine a time when such online sales and their billion-dollar buying habits weren’t the norm. In reality, however, they’re both rather recent phenomena.

For those not in the know, Cyber Monday is a marketing term for e-commerce transactions on the Monday after Thanksgiving in the United States. Coined by Ellen Davis of the National Retail Federation and Scott Silverman, the original Cyber Monday made its debut on Nov. 28, 2005.

So, it’s only 18-years-old, but in less than two decades, it swiftly became the online equivalent of Black Friday. From the onset, it was billed as a way for smaller retail websites to compete with the larger chains, and it has since grown to become an international marketing term used by online retailers around the globe.

Black Friday—the Christmas sales rush that occurs annually on the Friday after Thanksgiving—originated in 1950 with retail stores lowering prices and extending their hours. It, too, evolved into a global online phenomenon in 2000, boasting one of the highest worldwide sales that year, and subsequently inspiring the creation of Cyber Monday in 2005.

In 2017, Cyber Monday online sales grew to a record of $6.59 billion, compared with $2.98 billion in 2015, and $2.65 billion in 2014. The Cyber Monday on Nov. 30, 2020, (the first during the COVID-19 pandemic) was the biggest online shopping day in U.S. history with a total of $10.7 billion in online spending, far outpacing its Black Friday predecessor by a landslide.

Research has shown that retailers saw the most significant shopping period ran from about Dec. 5 through Dec. 15, which works to explain the Cyber Week-or-Two we now experience, I suppose.

So, why did it happen then? Well, in late 2005, writers at The New York Times surmised the following: “Millions of otherwise productive working Americans, fresh off a Thanksgiving weekend of window shopping, were returning to high-speed internet connections at work Monday and buying what they liked.”

It should be noted that, at the time, most people had far better internet services at work than they did at home.

When talking cyber sales of any sort, it’s hard to do so without saying something about eBay, one of the world’s largest online retailers, auctioning off most anything you can imagine.

While vehicles, jewelry, and electronics are some of the most common items sold today, there’s one unusual purchase cemented in the digital storefront’s history. Would you believe that the first item ever sold on eBay was a broken laser pointer?

It’s true. Silicon Valley web developer Pierre Omidyar launched eBay from his home in 1995, though originally it was called Auction Web. When it came time to test the online venture, Omidyar decided to list an inexpensive item he already owned, uploading an ad for a broken laser pointer. He purchased the $30 device for presentations but ended up using the laser to play with his cat instead.

When the device broke after a few weeks, the eBay founder listed it online for $1, making sure to clearly label the device as “inoperable.” After a week, interest picked up and a bidding war kicked off. The final winning bid for the laser pointer topped out at $14.83.

Soon after, the online auction marketplace exploded in popularity, and within two years, the company had rebranded to its current name and sold its millionth item — a Sesame Street-themed jack-in-the-box toy.

It took another two decades for Omidyar’s broken laser pointer to resurface. Canadian Mark Fraser came forward in 2015 amid the company’s 20th anniversary celebration, identifying himself as the very first eBay customer.

A self-proclaimed “electronics geek,” he purchased the discounted laser pointer with the hopes of repairing it himself. Although unsuccessful, Fraser held onto the tool for decades and more recently even considered re-listing the item on eBay to see what it would fetch.

Thus far, he hasn’t. But how much would you be willing to bet that the second selling of that broken cat toy would likely fetch one heck of a lot more than not quite $15 today?

Word Play is an occasional column penned by managing editor Bobby Horecka that focuses on words and their oft oddball origins and meanings.