Title: Black Friday and Cyber Monday: a case study

Authors: Maria Petrescu; Micah Murphy

Addresses: Andreas School of Business, Barry University, 11300 NE 2nd Ave., Rm. Andreas 238, Miami Shores, FL, 33161-6695,USA ' Eastern Michigan University, 300 W. Michigan Avenue, 469 Owen Building, Ypsilanti, MI 48197, USA

Abstract: The largest shopping day of the year in the USA is the Friday following the Thanksgiving holiday. More recently online retailers have joined the weekend shopping frenzy with promotions focused on Cyber Monday. In an effort to ascertain if price levels are different during these major shopping days and a random shopping day during the holiday season, this project investigates price differences between Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and December 10. Using data extracted from the websites of five retailers our analysis reveals that price differences alone do not account for the increased spending on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Since changing prices during the holiday may be too costly for retailers they may resort to limiting availability until price changes can be made.

Keywords: Black Friday; Cyber Monday; discounts; promotions; price levels; electronic retailing; e-tailing; online retailing; pricing; major shopping days; price differences; increased spending; availability limits; price changes; USA; United States.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEMR.2013.052884

International Journal of Electronic Marketing and Retailing, 2013 Vol.5 No.3, pp.187 - 198

Received: 01 Dec 2011
Accepted: 08 Oct 2012
Published online: 05 Jul 2014 *

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