Let’s do Cyber Monday!

Besides eating turkey and gathering with your family to celebrate what you are thankful for, shopping online or in stores has become a major part of our Thanksgiving holiday. The words “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday” quickly become the most mentioned words during a conversation between two housewives during this holiday season.

What exactly are the terms “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday”? The term “Black Friday” usually refers to the Friday after Thanksgiving, known as the first day of Christmas shopping. On “Black Friday,” retail stores carry out good deals and promotions to attract customers in an effort to increase sales. The term “Cyber Monday” refers to the first Monday after Thanksgiving, created in 2005 by a marketing firm in order to carry on the tradition of shopping in stores on Black Friday to shopping online that following Monday.

The difference between “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday” is more than one occurred on Friday and another occurred on Monday. “Cyber Monday” mainly focuses on online shopping and targets female in the work force. When the term “Cyber Monday” was first introduced, it was ranked as the 12th busiest online shopping day of the year. However, 10 years later, it has already become the biggest and busiest online shopping day of the year. “ This year, 2015, it is estimated to 3 billion total in sales, which is a 12% increase over 2014, surpassing “Black Friday”, which is estimated to generate 2.7 billion in online sales, according to Adobe Digital Index” (Bonewright)

When listing out the websites to visit on “Cyber Monday”, Target appeared to be the top choice of many online shoppers since the store offered 15 percent off of any items online. Shopping should always be a fun and engaging experience; however, for some shoppers who shopped on the target website, it turned out to be an unpleasant shopping experience. Due to the high traffic and demand online, the Target website stopped working for some customers when they tried to add items to their carts. When customers tried to add certain item to their carts, a message pop up on their screen indicating that there is a waiting line for that product and the customer needed to wait patiently or continue to refresh the page.

Target faced massive amounts of complaints and a new hashtag #targetfail was created on twitter. A representative told WIRE magazine, “The volume of traffic today is double the site’s previous record, set three days ago on Black Friday.” The spokeswoman said that while the site hasn’t crashed per se, the company has been “metering” the site’s traffic since 9am CST, when the company saw its biggest spike. (Greenberg)

Although the term “Cyber Monday” was originally created by a marketing firm in order to boost sales for certain retailers, it has become one of the most significant online shopping day for the United states and seen as a prominent trend for online retailing business.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When China joins the global reserve currency, who wins and who loses?

yuan-dollar-CNY-USD-shutterstock_1250pxThis past week, the International Monetary Fund announced it would introduce the Chinese yuan to their reserve currencies group. The global reserve currency currently consists of the U.S. dollar, the euro, the British pound and the Japanese yen. The elevation of the yuan on a global level will soon make up about 11 percent of the IMF special drawing rights, which is an international reserve asset supplementing the official reserves of the now five main countries of the global reserve currency group.This decision will not go into effect until October 2016, but many financial experts are expecting the internationalization of the yuan to have mixed consequences on other countries and regions of the world like the United States and Europe.

U.S.

Although the yuan will not be an official player in the global reserve currency until next year, investors have already started promoting the positive global impact the change will have on the United States. Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Treasury secretaries Henry Paulson and Timothy Geithner are leading a coalition to bring trading of the yuan to Wall Street. According to Wall Street Journal reporter Justin Baer, the group believes the inclusion of the yuan would lower costs for U.S. companies purchasing goods and services from China. They will continue to push for local yuan trading and work with both the Chinese and U.S. governments to develop the best currency trade plan.

Europe

Screen Shot 2015-12-03 at 9.33.41 PMThe British pound was the original IMF global reserve currency, until the U.S. dollar surpassed it in the 1920s. CNBC data journalists say since 2010, the pound has held 11 percent of the special drawing rights. However, the eventual addition of the yuan could reduce its holdings to 8 percent. The euro will most likely deal with an even greater loss. When the European union joined in 1999, the euro quickly gained ground accumulating over 37 percent of the special drawing rights by 2010. Now, the yuan could force the currency to reduce its shares for the first time by 6.5 percent. Both of the major currencies in Europe could be facing some stiff competition in the near future as more countries start adding the yuan to their reserve funds. As for the U.S. dollar, it seems like it will continue as the dominant global currency.

China

The inclusion of yuan in the reserve currencies group shows how the International Monetary Fund thinks China is ready for the big leagues. On the other hand, it also suggests the IMF wants to push the government of China to make its markets more accessible. Financial reforms in China have slowly increased in the last few years, but now China has the international and economic recognition to potentially move towards a free market economy. In an interview with Bloomberg Business, the head of the People’s Bank of China foreign central banks and global financial companies will not have to go through a pre-approval process to conduct transactions within the country. China is heading in an interesting direction, but time will tell if its new global status will have an impact on its economic policy.