Page 18 - IAV Digital Magazine #583

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
By Robert Passikoff
That’s the title of one of the most recognizable holiday songs ever written. When Meredith Wilson wrote it back in 1951 it was origi- nally called “It’s Beginning to Look Like Christmas” but whichever title you prefer it’s more appropriate this moment in time than it was 60 years ago. Because it is. Looking like Christmas. Earlier and earlier and ear- lier.
Over the past 5 years retailers have started to market for the holidays ear- lier and earlier. More than 90 days ago you could pur- chase Christmas and Chanukah gift-wrap and greetings cards at major retailers. Official “Christmas sales” are becoming a thing of the past. Oh, don’t worry. There’ll still be sales, but they won’t be as big or deep as they were, say, back in 2006. Retailers have smartened up regard- ing inventory control, so they’re actually planning on not having a lot of surplus
stock that they’d have to put on “sale” a week before Christmas.
Nah, now there’s always sales, and consumers are on to that. Given an inabili- ty to create meaningful lev- els of retail brand differenti- ation and a uniformity of merchandise range on offer, what else can the retailers do? They’re afraid that if they don’t move mer- chandise now – before some other store – they’ll be out a sale.
Consumers are on to all this so they’ve started buy- ing earlier and earlier for the holidays. Buying pat- terns have changed dra- matically since Wilson wrote his song. In fact, in a recent study conducted by Brand Keys, 66% of the 16,000 consumers sur- veyed indicated they had already begun their holiday shopping, looking for deals and sales before ‘Black Friday’ or ‘Cyber Monday.’ Sixty-percent (60%) of con- sumers are talking to each other and comparing prices before they check out the
brand. They think “catego- ry” first, “value” secondarily, and unless you happen to be Apple or Tiffany or Chanel, “brand” comes in a distant third. With all-sales- all-the-time, it’s getting harder and harder to tell when one holiday begins and another ends, but con- sumers don’t care as long as they end up as the ben- eficiaries of that marketing approach.
So reports that “holiday spend will only be up by X%” may be misleading, since consumers are no longer doing their holiday shopping within the tradi- tional 30-day “holiday peri- od” between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but are spreading spend over a shopping interval more than 4 times that, and may be spending far more than has been reported thus far.
Charles Dickens had Ebenezer Scrooge prom- ise, “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.” Retailers are apparently doing that too.
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine