It’s Like Christmas in July
Posted by scottjduffy on October 10, 2007
It’s a beautiful day outside still. You can walk around without a jacket, although you can certainly feel that fall is just around the corner. There’s a tiny hint of it in the air.
Must be time to start thinking about Christmas.
Seriously, companies are starting to prepare for their favorite time of the year. Many stores record 30%-50% of their sales just in the 6 weeks to 2 months leading to Christmas. So basically they can’t WAIT til October and November pass. They’re praying hard every night for time to pass quickly until consumers open their wallets again and spend like there’s no tomorrow.
I’m willing to make two bets this holiday season. Isn’t gambling in the spirit of Christmas? No? Oh well, here’s my two bets:
1) Consumers are starting to feel antsy about the future. This has been caused by the crash of the housing market, hints of a crisis in the high-risk debt business, and a general sense that there is a recession around the corner. So, as a result, I bet people will spend a bit less this holiday season.
2) Although the trend towards “gift cards” has been on the rise, and will likely stil rise as a percentage of sales this year, it won’t rise as much. People are starting to feel guilty about just giving their friends and family a gift card and want to return to being a bit more creative about what they give. This is also a result of wanting to spend less, so it’s easier to give a gift of something nice but cheap than to hand over a gift card for $25 to someone and have them know how cheap you really are.
Anyways, I’ll make this promise to everyone. The first retailer I see advertising Christmas in October, I will send them a nasty email on how crass and degrading their blatent commercialism appears. Let’s see if we can push winter back a few more weeks, instead of worrying about it while the weather is still warm.
