The Cyber Monday No-Show

Today was tough but I got through it. If there are two things that I love more than anything (besides my dog and my family), they would be shopping and the Internet. When you combine the two, you have Cyber Monday. For those of you who do not know, Cyber Monday is a marketing term for the Monday after Thanksgiving. It follows on the heels of Black Friday, traditionally thought of as the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. On this day, most major retailers open extremely early and offer promotional sales to kick off the shopping frenzy. Cyber Monday is is very similar. It was created by companies as a way to persuade consumers to purchase goods off the Internet. Cyber Monday now ranks as the highest spending day online.

As the holiday weekend approached, I saw lots of posts in my Facebook News feed and tweets in my Twitter Timeline about Black Friday. Some people were completely pumped up about it and could not wait to hit the stores bright and early. Other people expressed outrage that some stores were opening as early as 10PM on THURSDAY to start Black Friday sales. This early opening affected many employees and their families. The retail industry, in a sense, took away from family time and togetherness on the holiday. I decided that, for this reason, I was not going to contribute to the madness. I did go to Barnes and Noble in the middle of the day to purchase a personal development book but there was no sale. I simply bought the book because I wanted to read it.

Cyber Monday is a different story. Who can really argue with starting a new week by scoring fabulous deals on items that you want to purchase for family and friends? I surely cannot. With that said, I knew that it could be dangerous. Online shopping is way too easy! Some sites offer a one-click checkout and with the press of just one button, your shopping acquisition is on its way. There are no questions asking if you are sure of the purchase. One click and the item is yours! Oh, how easy it is to press that button…over and over and over! Yes, I have participated in Cyber Monday before so I know the drill.

After contemplating whether or not I was going to shop online this year, I decided to refrain. I held back. I completely smothered and repressed my own intuition. My credit card did not come out today! Now that I think about it, it did not come out at all…anywhere. That is quite remarkable, actually. I believe that the only thing I purchased today was a foil cutter for my parents from the dollar store! I DID get a bargain with my shopping but I did not do it online and it did not require a charge card.

A lot of my friends participated in Cyber Monday and I am looking forward to hearing about the great cyber-purchases that they made. I would like to know about your experiences with holiday shopping. Do you engage in Black Friday shopping? What about Cyber Monday? How do you find good deals during this time of year?