Black Friday: Waste of Time (Why You Don't Have To Go To Wal-Mart, Best Buy, or Macy's)

The internet has transformed all of our lives. If you ask most people if they could live without it I have a feeling very few could actually say yes. The internet allows people to do wonderful things like send mail across the world, pay bills, and order items. With the holidays approaching I want to focus on that last thing of ordering things. In the United States, we have an event called “Cyber Monday”. Essentially Cyber Monday is a day where people go online to order gifts for themselves, family, friends or loved ones. This of course is after Black Friday where people wait in tents all night in order to secure great deals on gifts. This year stores many retail stores like Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and Macy’s opened at midnight instead of opening the usual 3 or 4 a.m. like they usually do. This year alone over 220 million people participated in Black Friday. To me I never understand why people spend hours waiting in line to save some money. Of course, there will be other great deals (maybe even online) but what is the opportunity cost of waiting in a line

For those that don’t want to wait in line there is always the internet. In 2011, consumers spent $6 billion from November 28 through December 2. Clearly, this is a lot of money and many retailers are involved. What is interesting however is how online shopping makes things much more efficient. Back in the day people would drive from store to store looking for deals (they may had help from ads or coupons). Today people can find what they want and find it at the cheapest price and have it shipped right to their doorstep without going outside. If anything the internet decreased gas consumption because we don’t have people wandering around wasting gas (not to mention people are also saving gas through their navigation systems). The counter argument might be it takes trucks and cars to deliver all these items people order. This may be true however if you notice UPS and FedEx have trucks that carry hundreds of items and know the most fuel efficient way to deliver these items. FedEx expects to deliver 17 million packages on their busiest day. UPS last year exceeded 25 million deliveries.

Data from Price Grabber shows than 37% more percent of people will shop on Cyber Monday than last year. The major reasons people listed for shopping online were finding the best deals and basically not having to go to the mall. If you think about it people have expotentially more options and a better chance of getting a better deal sitting behind a computer than walking around the mall. Truly technology is glorious.