Fall-ing into the Holidays
Observant shoppers will have noticed something ominous in recent weeks: the arrival of fall and winter products and holiday marketing/promotions in many stores. As unbelievable as it might seem, considering the fact that much of the country is still experiencing 90-degree heat and a glance at the calendar shows that it is barely September as I write this, the holiday hullabaloo is already underway. The Halloween décor you saw showing up in August in Walmart is not a figment of your imagination, and the cinnamon pinecones you smell in the bins outside the grocery store are really there.
If it seems like we’re talking about the holiday shopping season starting earlier every year, it’s because we are. This is a phenomenon that shows no signs of slowing. It was only a few short years ago that the idea of holiday stuff being put out in August was a joke — the kind of “If this continues, we’ll start our Christmas shopping in the summer!” type of punch line that seemed ridiculous at the time.
The result of this ever-expanding holiday shopping “season” is that the traditional shopping rhythm so many consumers are familiar with has begun to break down. We used to have back-to-school sales, then a break in the action, then Halloween, then another break before the true holiday shopping season began in earnest after Thanksgiving. Today, however, there are no breaks: the holiday shopping season has become one long, undifferentiated stretch of time.
To me, the interesting question is not only why this is happening, but also what does it mean for brick-and-mortar retailers? I think it’s clear that many/most retailers are, at least to some extent, “keeping up with the Joneses” when it comes to these earlier holiday season products, promotions and programming. Everyone wants to be the first to market, to get their message out there and to take advantage of a season that has become an increasingly significant contributor to total yearly sales numbers.
As for whether or not this strategy actually works in terms of increasing sales, it’s too soon to say conclusively, but it certainly doesn’t seem to be making a dramatic positive impact. For consumers, it easily becomes confusing. When you have one “holiday” running into the next, you get some product, promotional and messaging overlap that can get a little confusing (or at least lose some of its punch).
For a firsthand example of how holiday messaging can seem oddly timed and generally fall flat, we don’t need to look any further than the recent Walmart announcement about the retailer’s new “checkout promise” for the holidays. The checkout promise is a guarantee, ostensibly aimed at consumers, that Walmart stores will have every cash register operating during the post-Thanksgiving holiday shopping period. The fact that Walmart felt the need to include a disclaimer that this policy will be in place only “during peak traffic periods” makes it seem like less than an ironclad guarantee, and it strikes me as not just a little vague, but a little oddly timed for a message to consumers. Considering the fact that this announcement came just one day after less-than-impressive second quarter results were announced, Walmart may have released this information when they did largely because this was a message aimed not at consumers, but at the investment community.
My own personal take on the timing issue is that the holiday season phenomenon has been pushed about as far as it can reasonably go. When we go to the store and see all these signals that fall is here, even though both the weather and the calendar might say otherwise, there’s a kind of seasonal dissonance that sets in. Because who wants winter to come that quickly? How many shoppers are really ready to think about this stuff, much less actually start buying it? Ultimately, I’m not sure if this is helping to move more merchandise.
Whether or not we’ve seen the beginning of the end of the ongoing holiday shopping season expansion, in the near term it’s reasonable to wonder what the earlier start this year might mean for the 2014 holiday season. I’ll have my take on that, as well as a few more thoughts about what might be in store for this year, in a future column. In the meantime, I’d love to hear your own thoughts and experiences about the earlier-than-ever holiday shopping season. What are you seeing out there in stores that is different from years past? Have any of you even begun thinking about holiday shopping yet? Let’s keep the conversation going: Leave a comment below or email me at [email protected].
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