It's Cyber Monday!

Fox News Radio's Eben Brown joins us to discuss how Cyber Monday started and where you might find the best deals. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is West Michigan's Morning News Stee Kelly and Brett Pikita.
It's December first, and it's time to start holiday shopping.
We made it through Thanksgiving. Well at least we don't
have a lot of stories about people that just gave up.
So it's all in. We're moving forward. Today's Cyber Monday.

(00:21):
That's one of those days where productivity could be a
little down at work. It doesn't necessarily mean that all
of us will be doing it, but why not click
and buy while you have a little downtime today on
the story. Evan Brown with Fox News Radio, thanks so
much for doing this today. Eman, good morning, So talk

(00:41):
to us a little bit about how this whole thing started.
I think it's funny and what makes me laugh out
loud is that we're all doing this on company time,
and maybe I should.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
As if you've never done it the other three hundred
and sixty fourth days exactly. That's a great point there,
you go. You know this began. Cyber Monday began as
a way to promote e commerce. You know, when e
commerce was kind of a new thing for so many
people to you know, everyone went out shopping on Black Friday.

(01:14):
They lined up outside stores. They're camped out through the night,
even in the cold weather and all that stuff, and
they had their big sales, you know, in the brick
and mortar stores. Cyber Monday was away for online retailers
to try to match that kind of energy and try
to generate the buzz for themselves. And I don't know
about you, but it all seems to kind of have

(01:35):
blended together by this point. You know, there's Black Friday
deals listed as Black Friday deals on Amazon that started
a week and a half ago, so kind of, really,
what's the point other than, you know, they're trying to
jump up sales, whether you have it in you know,
in in store sales, online sales. This is the time

(01:56):
of the year where most retailers do the bulk of
their businessiness. And in fact, Black Friday was named that
because it put a lot of these retailers in the
black for the year. Many of them have been operating
in a loss for us much of the year.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
And yeah, sorry, go ahead, go ahead, Evan, No, no, no,
So just Cyber Monday began with this idea that we
could do the same for Black Friday that you know,
for the brick and mortar retailers that we could do
for uh, for online retailers and so uh.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
And then that gave way to things like small Business
Saturday and whatnot. So it had it worked through the years. Yeah,
I just think it's kind of blended all together. Sometimes
Cyber Monday deals take on a little bit more of
a tech theme to them, Like so, for instance, Apple
has big sales on Cyber Monday right as opposed to

(02:47):
Sally having their big sales on Friday. So if you're
waiting till Cyber Monday, you're more likely going to find
some better deals on technology type stuff that you could
be buying, whether it's personal tech sell phones, you know,
or even even tech for the for the job, you know,
whether it's stuff for you know, working around the house,

(03:09):
you know, things you would buy at home depot or
or Low's or something like that, you know, or or
you know, office productivity stuff, software, video games, those kindific.

Speaker 4 (03:19):
And that's where I wanted to go with my question
for you, Evan, is you know, are the Cyber Monday
deals gonna be the best deals out there traditionally? I
think they've done well to your point, because Black Friday,
I think some stores you know, got slapped a little
bit as a negative branding thing because they said they're
going to have these swag bags, these gift cards, and

(03:39):
then people wait in line here in Michigan and cold temperatures,
and it didn't live up to the hype, and the
deals weren't as good where I think Cyber Monday, Right,
it's a little more set up for the consumer because
you're going to look on there and if you're not
happy in five seconds, you're going somewhere else, right, right.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
So they have to do more to grab you right
and keep you there, as opposed to let's say it's
Black Friday. Well, you've made the effort to go to
the store. Even if you didn't camp out all night long,
you still got out of the house, you know, the
day after stuffing yourself with turkey, you drove somewhere. You
went into a store, probably grouching about it, thinking, oh,
it's going to be so crowded anyway. So once you're there,

(04:16):
you're kind of a little bit of a of a
captive audience. So if the deals aren't as sweet as
they used to be with all the freebies and whatnot,
you were still hurt. Right, Well, I'm still here, I
might as well get some shopping done. We still left
the bike gifts blah blah blah. Yeah, with Monday, you know,
most of everyone's back to work and you're you're doing
things at work, and like, as you mentioned, you know,

(04:37):
you're you're kind of shopping while you're working. If you're
not finding the deal right away, you're kind of moving
past it, right So, yeah, they do have to try
to do something to kind of really get your attention
and get you to click and enter the enter your
credit card number.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
You my friend, Evan Brown with Fox News Radio, We
appreciate your time today.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
Thank you, You're welcome you too,