Shop til you drop

I’m fascinated with the way we describe certain words in our culture. They often make a ton of sense, other times they get right to the point, and still other times they’re scary as hell.

For example, I learned today that according to the retail industry there’s anywhere from seven to nine different buyer profiles (including bargain hunters, the educated customer, to impulse buyers) and I would be described as a “reluctant shopper.”

Reluctant shoppers would rather be doing anything else other than shopping. Hmm, they got that right. This means that these types of shoppers need a certain amount of hand holding and need to be entertained or else they will buy from a different store. Who knew?

A shopping spree

It’s not just the way the industry talks about shoppers. We also use crazy terms to describe certain days. Everyone and their mother seems to know that today has traditionally been called Black Friday, the start of the Christmas shopping season in the United States. Many stores offer highly promoted sales at discounted prices and often open early, sometimes as early as midnight or even on Thanksgiving. We’re now in the age of online shopping, but Black Friday still holds a huge place in our culture.

Black Friday has routinely been the busiest shopping day of the year in the United States and there have been any number of reasons for describing the day as black, some making more sense than others. The first time “Black Friday” specifically referred to shopping the day after Thanksgiving was in the 1950s. Police in Philadelphia complained about an influx of people coming to the city to shop the day after Thanksgiving and attend the Army-Navy game. The called it “Black Friday” because they had to control crowds.

I hear the term has now made its way internationally to the rest of the world. My deepest apologies! You would think an industry would steer clear of calling anything it promotes as derisive, but who knows about the retail industry.

American Express and the Small Business Association have been trying in recent years to get in on the act. They promote Small Business Saturday on the Saturday following Thanksgiving to celebrate and support small businesses and all they do for their communities. I think the simple term “Saturday” would be more appropriate, but hey, anything for a buck.

And it goes on and on and on

The terms keep coming. The retail industry is so hot for the Almighty Dollar that it even promotes Cyber Monday, supporting e-commerce transactions on the Monday after Thanksgiving in the United States. It was created by retailers to encourage online shopping. 

Oh it’s a crazy time of year. It’s not just the business jargon either. Christmas is a big one for many folks, but there are 14 different religious holidays in December. Good luck keeping your humor during this busy season.