The truth about “Christmas creep:” We complain about holiday shopping season starting in October — but we keep buying earlier and earlier
Consumers resent retailers pushing holiday shopping ever earlier, but they keep buying — so who's to blame?
Nordstrom, the high-end department store chain, has long prided itself on its policy of not decorating its stores with Christmas cheer until after Thanksgiving. But if you go to the company’s website right now, you’ll see graphics depicting turtle doves, Christmas tree ornaments and gift-wrapped packages.
Like most retailers, Nordstrom is well aware that in the era of online shopping, American holiday shopping habits are changing, requiring retailers to adapt. Nordstrom can save the winter wonderland window displays for the last weekend of November, but online it’s not holding back.
“The whole timing of the holiday season is in the hands of consumers,” Kit Yarrow, a consumer psychologist and author of “Decoding the New Consumer Mind: How and Why We Shop and Buy,” told Salon. “They dictate to retailers when they want merchandise available. The retailers are really just saying ‘there’s one holiday season, it’s make-or-break for me, and if half of shoppers are shopping before Thanksgiving, I need to make sure I have what they want when they want it.”
Indeed, if there’s any consumer blowback about the Christmas creep phenomenon — the much-derided practice of publicizing holiday shopping earlier and earlier — it’s not reflected in American consumer habits. While polls show a majority of consumers are turned off by seeing in-store Christmas decorations before Halloween, what people say and what they do often differ.
The National Retail Federation trade group has said for years its polling shows about 40 percent of holiday shopping begins before Halloween, and well more than half of that takes place before Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving that in the old brick-and-mortar era of retail used to mark the start of holiday shopping.
Original Article Courtesy of Salon.com and Angelo Young.
Photo Credit: Getty/Sandy Huffaker
