It’s officially the biggest shopping week in the calendar year, but what actually is Cyber Week?
Cyber Week straddles the Black Friday sales in the last week of November. Black Friday? That rings a bell! You may have heard of Black Friday before and I wouldn’t be surprised if you associate it with frenzied Americans pushing, shoving and fighting in Macy’s stores for the biggest deals. Something along the lines of when Monica went to buy her wedding dress…
That’s because Black Friday and Cyber Week are an American tradition that has jumped the pond and been adopted by UK retailers. Black Friday was initially started as a way for US retailers to celebrate the start of the Christmas shopping period with major deals and hyped-up discounts and has evolved into something so much more.
So how did a one-day American tradition evolve into a week’s worth of deals in the UK?
To put it bluntly, it’s because retailers just can’t keep up with the demand in just 24 hours. When UK brands started adopting the tradition and creating their own sales, websites crashed, orders were missed and there were many disgruntled shoppers. So sales started cropping up earlier, brands began to stretch them longer and thus Cyber Week became what it is today.
Now Cyber Week is a well known shopping phenomenon, starting on the 23rd of November all the way up until the 30th (with Black Friday falling on the 26th). It’s a week of discounts, deals and deliriously low prices – it really is the ultimate way to kickstart your Christmas shopping.
Some questions you may have about cyber week:
If something goes on sale on the Monday of Cyber week, does that mean it’ll go down more by the Friday?
Probably not. The biggest misconception of Cyber Week is that Friday is the biggest day for sales, when in actual fact the whole week is full of amazing discounts. Most of the brands will offer different deals on different days (for example, last year Topshop offered 20% off coats on the Monday, 40% off bags on the Tuesday, 30% off jeans on the Wednesday and so on).
If you see something you have on your wishlist go on sale, I wouldn’t recommend waiting to see if the price drops lower because the chances are it won’t and it might even sell out before you get a chance to grab it!
Should I do my Christmas shopping in the sales?
I would 100% recommend it. I like planning my Christmas shopping in advance so that I could potentially get an amazing discount on the items I want to give my loved ones.
Can I buy for myself in Cyber Week?
Ugghhh duh! As well as starting my gift buying, I always have a plan of what I want to treat myself to for cyber week. That’s part of the fun!
Do you have any tips for making the most of Cyber Week and Black Friday?
Yes, yes and yes. I actually have a full blogpost sharing my top hacks for Cyber Week shopping and a post about the mistakes to avoid too. Keep your eyes peeled for that!
