Black Friday and Cyber Monday Sales Shoot Up

Spending shot up this year for black Friday and cyber Monday shoppers. According to this BBC news article, between Thursday and Sunday 47 million people visited stores and websites spending a total of 59.1billion dollars, which is 13 percent more than last year, said the National Retail Federation. 

This is exciting news for the U.S. economy. I found it interesting that this story made the home page of BBC news. However, I think it would have been interesting if BBC news had included a video of some shoppers waiting outside some of the stores. The only visual multimedia they used for this story was a picture of Macy's shoppers standing in line in the new NYC store. According to the article, 11,000 shoppers showed up to the store for its midnight opening. I think it would have been interesting to hear how long some of those shoppers waited outside. Another thing I think the article lacked was some of the other companies/stores that had long lines outside. I know Apple had long lines of people waiting outside their stores for black Friday. 

Below is a video of shoppers in the U.S. during black Friday. The video begins by showing the crows running into a mall in North Carolina. The BBC news article addressed above did not include this video and I think it should have. I found this video on youtube, but it is from BBC news. It shows the excitement and urgency people felt to get in the stores and search for a good deal. The BBC news video even states that some stores opened up on Thanksgiving day. It has interviews of people saying that "times are better" and this is the greatest rise in spending since the recession. These are all details that should have been shared in the original article. 

In terms of cyber Monday, the article estimated that there will be a 20 percent increase in spending from last year. However, there were not pictures or videos regarding cyber monday. I think the article could have used more multimedia to cover the subject matter. Its the human interest part of these stories always intrigue me. I find it so interesting to see the lines of people at midnight waiting in the cold for the store to open the next day. In terms of shopping and saving, that's dedication!

I did like how they had a "More on This Story" section below the article where you could read similar articles about the U.S. economy. I found those to be interesting because they elaborated on some of the bigger picture economic questions that come to mind while reading this BBC news article.