What Holiday Season Is This?

Santa no longer comes to town on Thanksgiving Day at the end of the Macy’s parade, he joins the kids for Trick-or-Treating. The Christmas season kicked off two weeks before Halloween this year – at least three weeks earlier than last year. I understand retailers trying to get the most out of this year’s marginally better outlook, but I wonder if consumer response will meet their expectations.

The airwaves are already filled with carols, glittering lights, wide-eyed children and wished-for gifts all at “gotta have it” prices that can be put on lay-away. I give these retailers credit; they’re taking full advantage of the economic upswing we’ve been experiencing and the overall consumer “frugal fatigue” NPD Group has identified through recent surveys. The issue is timing. When kids are running around in costumes asking for candy or we’re planning the big turkey dinners, are Christmas messages really making an impression or simply wasting advertiser dollars?

Pushing the Season
The Specialty Retail Expert suggests “Introduce your Christmas inventory early (no later than November 1st)...retailers who introduced holiday inventory earlier than the year before sold more. A few customers may complain it's too early, but you'll sell more as a result.” I wonder if this is really true or if Christmas spending has a finite time period in consumers’ minds. Consider Disney’s thought process for the release of their latest film.

This past weekend Disney released the 3D animated version of “A Christmas Carol.” Typically, holiday films would be released Thanksgiving weekend but the hope was that Disney would be able to push the season by releasing the film early, thus earning enough at the box office to cover the outrageous costs of the film. Unfortunately, opening weekend fell far short of expectations and the film is now projected to lose Disney over $100 million. Feedback has been that consumers just aren’t ready to watch holiday movies.

Online Exceptions
On the flip side, Black Friday ads are being released daily due to consumer demand and some presale items are already sold out. Best Buy’s $249.99 Acer laptop sold out online in one day (but will still be available in-store on Black Friday). This seems to be unique to online shopping. A study by eDigitalResearch and IMRG indicates that 93% of consumers are planning to do at least some of their shopping online this Christmas, with 71% planning to buy more than half of their gifts on the web. Since payment processing and shipping lag time need to be factored in these purchases, online shopping often occurs earlier and in a more thoughtful manner than onsite shopping.

I don’t care if the gifts I’m going to buy are discounted heavily or almost free in October, I’m a December shopper. I like it cold, snowy and close to the holiday I’m shopping for. I just can’t buy Christmas gifts that early – I’d likely give them away for trick-or-treat.

What do you think? Have you been successful pushing the seasons or do your customers have very specific timeframes in mind?