Low Expectations
According to Deloitte & Touche USA LLP's 21st Annual Holiday Survey of retail spending and trends, twenty-four percent of the people surveyed do NOT expect to get what they want during the holiday season, at least not as a gift. Sad, eh?
As a married woman who has received a number of questionable gifts over the years (can we say Ab-Doer?) I wonder how many of the people surveyed were women. The flipside of that, however, is that men tend to get less of what they want for the holidays (purely personal opinion here, but it applies to all the men in my life over the age of 10) because they are harder to shop for. Women may be shopaholics, but men tend to simply buy what they want, and rarely talk about what they want, leaving the people shopping for them to guess. Or is that just me?
The report also seems to suggest a decline in the importance of "Black Friday"--the Friday after Thanksgiving, so named because many retailers rely on sales from this day through the end of December to put them in the black for the year. More and more shoppers are procrastinating waiting until December to shop, men in particular (really, I'm not picking on you, guys, I promise).
In odd contradiction to that, people seem to want holiday merchandise out earlier in the year. The report indicates that a lot of people would like to see holiday merchandise, that stuff that doesn't become available until the week of Thanksgiving or later, available earlier in the year. Some even want to start seeing retailers decorated for the holidays as early as September.
Huh? Yea, as early as September. Personally, I would like to see the 'hot' stuff for the year available earlier because I'm a year-round holiday shopper. In my youth I messed up my budget every year by waiting until December to shop without planning it ahead and spent the first half (or more!) of the following year paying off holiday debt. If holiday merchandise is available earlier people can plan better, buy earlier, and spread their purchases out over a longer period of time. I don't really think this would have a negative retail impact since there will ALWAYS be people who wait for the big sales and incentives of the holiday season. Offering merchandise earlier might also help prevent some of the notorious toy and electronics shortages of the holidays.
That said, please, no one convince retailers to actually decorate earlier! I hate seeing Christmas trees at Home Depot in October, it's just WRONG.
As a married woman who has received a number of questionable gifts over the years (can we say Ab-Doer?) I wonder how many of the people surveyed were women. The flipside of that, however, is that men tend to get less of what they want for the holidays (purely personal opinion here, but it applies to all the men in my life over the age of 10) because they are harder to shop for. Women may be shopaholics, but men tend to simply buy what they want, and rarely talk about what they want, leaving the people shopping for them to guess. Or is that just me?
The report also seems to suggest a decline in the importance of "Black Friday"--the Friday after Thanksgiving, so named because many retailers rely on sales from this day through the end of December to put them in the black for the year. More and more shoppers are procrastinating waiting until December to shop, men in particular (really, I'm not picking on you, guys, I promise).
In odd contradiction to that, people seem to want holiday merchandise out earlier in the year. The report indicates that a lot of people would like to see holiday merchandise, that stuff that doesn't become available until the week of Thanksgiving or later, available earlier in the year. Some even want to start seeing retailers decorated for the holidays as early as September.
Huh? Yea, as early as September. Personally, I would like to see the 'hot' stuff for the year available earlier because I'm a year-round holiday shopper. In my youth I messed up my budget every year by waiting until December to shop without planning it ahead and spent the first half (or more!) of the following year paying off holiday debt. If holiday merchandise is available earlier people can plan better, buy earlier, and spread their purchases out over a longer period of time. I don't really think this would have a negative retail impact since there will ALWAYS be people who wait for the big sales and incentives of the holiday season. Offering merchandise earlier might also help prevent some of the notorious toy and electronics shortages of the holidays.
That said, please, no one convince retailers to actually decorate earlier! I hate seeing Christmas trees at Home Depot in October, it's just WRONG.
posted by Dy at 6:49 AM
1 Comments:
I agree completely with you, Dy. I love getting my shopping done earlier so having things available earlier would be nice. However, whoever actually said they want the stores decorated before Thanksgiving needs their head examined. I'm OK if the decorations go up in stores the week of Thanksgiving (I understand time issues) but before that is just plain wrong. Decorations available in stores the last couple weeks of Thanksgiving is OK too....just not September.
Lanel
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