'Cyber Monday' Fails to Materialize

TOP had a perfectly average and ordinary day yesterday. Based on the "my-anecdotal-evidence-is-good-enough-for-me" school of reasoning, this leads me to conclude that so-called "Cyber Monday" is a myth.

(Sorry, too much Onion.)

Mike
(Thanks to James Hengst)

Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
A book of interest today:

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Arun: "I almost freaked out on reading the article at the link. Then a simple calculation showed there were a half-million seconds in that six-day trip; assuming two girls shot an image each second (not sleeping, talking etc. etc.) that would be a million images. Unless the cameras had 12 fps, of course. But you got me there. Good one. I hope. Because the alternative (that this is true) is too horrible to contemplate!"

Comments

[Trevor Buss]

Mike,
It took me one extra day to convince my wife on the D600 and 50 f1.8 that I bought through your link today. You certainly deserve the commission, as you and your Dragoon helped push me over the edge. That, and I finally got my hands on an m4/3s EVF recently and did not like it. Thinking of my Nikon FE viewfinder on 24mp with handfuls of buttons and dials fills me with glee.

[Big congrats, Trevor, that's a major purchase. Hope you love it. And many thanks. --Mike]

[Nico Burns]

I also saw this onion article and had gone as far as calculating that 12 million photos over 6 days is roughly 24fps before realising where I was reading it.

It just seemed so plausible...

[James]

I dunno. If you check out the Scott Kelby blog they issued an apology because their systems went down whilst on their way to their single biggest sales day ever.

[I'm pretty happy with what I get. I have the ideal job for me, and how many people can say that? --Mike]

[Mike Plews]

Sorry Mike, if I had won the Powerball on Saturday as planned there would have been a little more action on your B&H portal on Monday, actually quite a lot more.

[Michael T.]

It would be interesting to see how TOP fares from the Monday before Thanksgiving through the end of this week. It seems that many online retailers (as well as brick and mortar ones) started their sales earlier and lasted longer. As for "cyber Monday" I have seen several online retailers (e.g. Amazon US) advertise using this promotion last Saturday and going through this entire week. Additionally I have read that online sales will be up this year (vs. last) by something like 15%. The historical beginnings of cyber Monday (i.e. when folks without high speed Internet connections at home) would shop online from their work computer the first Monday after the long Thanksgiving holiday) no longer applies.

[James Sinks]

The "Cyber Monday" deals all started on Thanksgiving or Black Friday this year.

I did all my Cyber Monday shopping as soon as the deals popped up. And I didn't set foot in a store between last Tuesday and yesterday evening.

[Eric Rose]

Ya well if the marketing types keep pounding away at it, cyber Monday will become a reality someday. What starts as a tingle, turns into an itch and then finally you have to scratch it.

[Mathew Hargreaves]

My only purchase was a 1945 B-29 MACR (Missing Air Crew Report) for a black and white print I bought off of Ebay. It is part of the research for my next book. I think that counts as photography related.

[Burt]

There were deals?

[Doug Stocks]

Perhaps you might reconsider your business model. I prefer to make purchases after reading up, (your site is helpful) then going down to a shop and handling it. This internet buying thing is not even "a pig at a poke". I keep pokin' the screen but nothing squeals.
We still have several bricks and mortar shops left here in Silicon Valley and the best are Indie. Price point bargain thinking only, does not serve me very well nor my community (where I live in the physical world).
I am confident that you may figure out a way to monetize your site while supporting the ability to shop locally.
Amazon in its 10+ years has finally managed to make a profit for its shareholders, a meager one.
Try Affiliate Locally.

Good Luck, Mike
Love your blog

[wchen]

Didn't realize that uploading millions of vacation pictures to facebook or whateverbook can be a vacation also...

[hugh crawford]

What ever happened to your Adorama affiliate link? Adorama now lets you order and pay online then walk into the store and pick it up which removes the main impediment to affiliate shopping for NYC procrastinators. Also, there is this big purchase that Adorama has in stock at several hundreds less than Amazon or B&H.

[Mike Johnston]

"What ever happened to your Adorama affiliate link?"

Hugh,
Now added to the Affiliates ("Buy Through Our Links") page.

Mike

[Marek Fogiel]

I wrote recently, that nowadays (with digital) you might get 2 good photographs in a year out of a million - I was clearly grossly off the track, if you can take 12 million pictures in just 6 days!
The next step in sightseeing, could be to rent a drone with a digital camera, and make it fly over your head taking pictures at the rate 0f 10 fps, while you enjoy that glass of bordeaux in a sidewalk cafe'...

[Dennis Ng]

It seems very hard compare to my last marathon photo-develop-print session.

When I finally settle down my then-toilet-cum-dark-room, I decide to take 70 8x10 photos around my holiday home (which I have taken "test" photo from 2004 onwards) in one day including taken photo, develop and then contact print. So exhaustive after that that I just stop taking 8x10 photos for quite a while.

I guess she may stop photos for sometimes now. Or would she?

[Ed Grossman]

I wonder if conditioning the consumer to expect great deals on days like Black Friday/Cyber Monday is really *that* good for business. I purchased a few things on Monday (sorry - nothing available through your links), that I would've purchased earlier if I hadn't known that the vendor always offers rock-bottom pricing around Thanksgiving. In effect, one vendor waited almost two months to get my money and then took 30% less of it than if I had bought their goods in October.

Maybe more people make impulse buys when they see a price drop. Still, are those extra sales offset by the reduced revenues they accept from decidedly non-impulse buys?

Note that I know very little about marketing, economics, and related fields. Just wondering out loud.

[Karl]

Funny people those Onion folk. The only thing they missed was instead of having her use a camera, it would have been slightly more amusing if she used her phone and the same Hipstamatic preset for every single one of those pics.

[Dennis]

The problem as I see it is that Cyber Monday is supposed to be all about holiday shopping (as in "for others") and if your other readers are like me, the last thing in the world their spouses want for Christmas is a camera.

(I did buy myself a camcorder - to help my wife with the shopping - from B&H through your link though).

[Bryce Lee]

Too many photographers, too many photographs,
spoil the broth (the end result).

See? That's what digitial encourages, too many
images, not enough time or thought process.

[Norm Nicholson]

Everyone is a photographer now, but everyone isn't a "photographer."

[Dave Stewart]

Was she recording video? ;)