https://qz.com/1138967/how-amazon-conquered-cyber-monday-told-through-the-deals-it-hawked-every-year/

There are a lot of ways to track Amazon’s stunning ascent in global consumerism: its revenue, its market cap, its stock price, its ever-growing registry of Amazon Prime members. In honor of the holiday shopping season, here’s one more: Amazon’s annual Cyber Monday press release.

Amazon started teasing its Cyber Monday deals in a press release 10 years ago with a modest assortment of offerings. They included a Tommy Hilfiger men’s green bezel watch ($49.99 down from $105), a 42-inch Panasonic 720p Plasma HDTV ($699 down from $999) and “19” by Adele (the audio CD for $8.99 down from $15.98). To better compete with brick-and-mortar outlets, Amazon also invited in-store shoppers to text “COMPARE” to “AMAZON” (262966) with the product name, promising to reply with a text message listing the price on Amazon.com.