Bagging discounts on Black Friday and Cyber Monday has become a yearly ritual for many of us. The roots go back to the early 20th century – a folk belief is that it is the day retailers go "into the black" after running at a loss for the year. In reality the term was first connected with the day after Thanksgiving as a comment on the nightmarish congestion generated by the crowds in Philadelphia. In the 1980s sports games gave way to shopping as the public's favourite post-Thanksgiving pastime. Cyber Monday arose in the mid-noughties when marketers realized that workers returning to the office following Thanksgiving breaks were making use of high-speed internet connections to shop online bargains.

Bagging discounts on Black Friday and Cyber Monday has become a yearly ritual for many of us. The roots go back to the early 20th century – a folk belief is that it is the day retailers go "into the black" after running at a loss for the year. In reality the term was first connected with the day after Thanksgiving as a comment on the nightmarish congestion generated by the crowds in Philadelphia. In the 1980s sports games gave way to shopping as the public's favourite post-Thanksgiving pastime. Cyber Monday arose in the mid-noughties when marketers realized that workers returning to the office following Thanksgiving breaks were making use of high-speed internet connections to shop online bargains.