Does it make your blood boil when you walk into a store before Halloween and see Christmas decorations out already? Or when you see holiday advertisements on TV before Halloween? Sorry to disappoint you, but research has shown that retailers should start showing Christmas and holiday stuff before Halloween. If your foot is planted firm on not bringing out holiday decorations until after Thanksgiving, you may want to reconsider that. Retailers do this because customers buy it.
Big box stores have been doing this for years, and they’re on to something. The closer we get to Christmas, the fewer customers are willing to spend on gifts. And that’s due to customers already making big purchases. By the time we get to the holidays, their gift budget has decreased quite a bit. Most shoppers have a sense of their holiday spending budgets at the beginning of October. And good news for retailers, a 2020 Shopper Survey from Coresight Research showed that 50% of customers expect to have more money to spend on holiday shopping because they haven’t been spending all year. The same survey showed that 52% of shoppers plan to spend more money on better quality products. Seize your opportunity to sell through your inventory while their wallets are hot and get your holiday stuff out now.
We’re not saying you have to blast Christmas music in your store to put your customers in the holiday shopping mood. You don’t even have to deck out your whole store yet. Make it a gradual transition. Start small—set a small space in your store to be the “holiday” shopping zone. You can eventually expand that as we get closer to the holidays. Big box stores have been doing this for years and research has shown that it works.
Is your store one of many that are making plans to close before December 1? Consider implementing this holiday theme on your website. The longer you wait to do this either in your physical store or on your website, the more chances your competition has to steal your sales. Don’t miss your opportunity to sell through your inventory early heading into the holiday shopping season.
Source: www.retaildoc.com
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