All Retailers Want for Christmas is You
The fight is on for retailers this holiday season as the economy continues to wither all across the world. To combat the agony of waiting in long lines, there is one thing that customers can look forward to: Sales. And plenty of them.
Time to rejoice, right? Well, not so fast…
What’s good for the customer is bad for companies. Really bad. Holiday shopping is expected to be down this Christmas. And that’s forcing companies to scramble and make new plans to lure customers into stores.
“Historically retailers plan out promotions and advertising a year in advance,” says Craig Rowley, head of the retail sector for Hay Group, a Philadelphia management consultancy. “This year more than most years … you are going to see retailers trying things.”
Reports just released through an informal survey show that retailers are feeling both “anxious” and “optimistic.” I get the anxious, but I wouldn’t say optimistic is a word any retail company should use right now.
So, although shopping in stores may be down, you’d think that online sales may see a uptick, right? Wrong, says the NYTimes. There is just really no good news, just more of the same.
E-commerce spending growth slowed to 6 percent in the third quarter over the year before, down from 13 percent in the second quarter, according to comScore. Growth rates have declined every month since April, and September’s rate of 5 percent was the lowest recorded by comScore since it started tracking e-commerce in 2001.
And like a daily dose of eggnog at night in my apartment and Home Alone re-runs on TBS or the USA Network, weak holiday sales aren’t just around for the holidays. Retailers are no longer counting on gift card sales to help the weeks after the season. Thought it really may not seem like a big deal, it is. The article states “the lack of gift cards could curb shoppers’ enthusiasm for buying full-priced merchandise after the holidays, and leave retailers struggling to bolster their margins after what is expected to be a profit-crunching Christmas selling season.”
Bah Humbug.
November 22nd, 2008 at 8:51 am
Damn. Retailers are going to have to unload so much merchandise in the new year that they will be lucky to turn a profit!
I don’t think that shoppers will get the big picture, though: less retail activity will drive prices down and the resultant deflation will wreak havoc on what’s left of the US economy.