Big sales are a dime a dozen so what's so special about Black Friday and Cyber Monday?

Each year, more tech-savvy Black Friday shoppers are checking prices of goods at rival stores. Photo / AP

Happy Cyber Monday everyone!

Yes welcome to that special day of the year where we celebrate the joy of online shopping.

Some of you may feel you haven't yet recovered from Black Friday. Don't be a grinch, this is an important time of year to stop and give thanks for the miracle of modern retailing.

I like to think of Black Friday as Cyber Monday's Eve.

Regardless, it is the long weekend festival that officially kicks off the Christmas shopping season.

And what better way to get into the Christmas spirit than a 45 per cent discount on a laptop? If you are quick enough to nab one.

With limited numbers in stock only the truly devout shoppers will access the biggest bargains.

The more agnostic among us will make do with 25 to 30 per cent savings.

If ever there was any doubt - the season to shop has begun.

So what is actually going on here?

The arrival of Black Friday and Cyber Monday to our shores in recent years seems to have brought a new level of intensity to the pre-Christmas rush.

The two days have crept into the New Zealand calendar along with Halloween, Super Bowl and many other things Americans love.

In the US these two orgies of capitalism bookend Thanksgiving weekend.

Black Friday is the more traditional of the two.

According to Wikipedia, the idea that the Friday after Thanksgiving Thursday was a special day for shopping dates back to the 1930s but it didn't get dubbed Black Friday until 1961.

The "Black" part is believed to refer to the fact it is only from this point in the year that retailers move into profit - out of the red and into the black.

However, its first recorded usage was by New York police who didn't particularly enjoy the crowds and chaos the day brought to the streets.

Retailing is a tough game these days. Price pressure keeps margins low and moving big volumes of stock is required for retailers to stay in the black.

A good Christmas season is crucial. In fact the line between a good profit and a poor one is now so fine that we regularly hear retailers blaming the weather for bad results.

If it rains a lot they don't sell enough Jandals and BBQs. If we have a warm winter they are left holding too many heaters and coats.

Moving seasonal stock is now so vital that discounting and big sales are a dime a dozen - so to speak.

Retailers find themselves struggling to sell very much at all for a "full" retail price these days. Shoppers just have it too easy. Thanks online shopping.

We don't have to crowd into shops these days to hunt for bargains. We can compare prices on any item at any number of local stores before we purchase.

Even better - from a consumer point of view - we can compare prices globally.

And for better or worse this seems to have forced New Zealand retailers to embrace Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Black Friday is a bricks-and-mortar affair with online sales bolted on but Cyber Monday is truly the manifestation of the 21st century consumer festival.

It is not a religious or cultural celebration co-opted by marketers.

It was created by the marketers - the high priests of our age.

Its first recorded use was on November 28, 2005 in a wonderfully self-fulfilling press release put out by Shop.org : "Cyber Monday Quickly Becoming One of the Biggest Online Shopping Days of the Year."

And so it came to pass.

In the US in 2014, Cyber Monday online sales grew to a record US$2.68 billion, compared with the previous year's US$2.29 billion.

It is increasingly being adopted around the world from Argentina to China, Europe and New Zealand.

So with magic speed once matched only by Santa and his reindeer the internet now enables us to buy all our toys and gifts from the ends of the Earth.

We still have to wait for delivery, but if Amazon's Jeff Bezos has his way the Christmas night sky will soon be lit with the flashing red noses of his robotic drones.

Welcome to the spirit of Christmas Future. Ho, ho, ho and happy shopping to you all.