Christmas shopping is beginning ever earlier, even before Halloween. Here’s why

Large retail stores across North America began holiday sales this year much earlier than in the past. Many consumers are noticing this trend. Those who spoke to the Washington Examiner about it had strong, mostly negative opinions of the widened selling window.

“It makes me turn into a combination of Charlie Brown and Ted Kaczynski,” Washington state resident Brett McGowan said.

NOVEMBER TO REMEMBER: SEVEN VIRGINIA STATE SEATS TO WATCH FOR YOUNGKIN GOP TRIFECTA

“I noticed Xmas stuff two weeks ago and said, ‘That’s ridiculous! They can at least wait until Halloween is over.’ Although truthfully, I think they should wait until Remembrance Day [Veterans Day in the United States] is over,” said Albertan Cheryl Qzee Erickson, from Canada.

Arizona-based layout artist Richard Coda sent in a picture of a display with accompanying commentary on Oct. 25: “Sunday at Home Depot. This is Jack Frost. It’s not even Halloween yet!”

“It makes me think of the holidays as less special,” said the Texas-based retailer Peter Hensel.

“Going to Walmart feels like walking into a dystopian realm, and not in a fun way,” complained Hannah Rose Williams, creator of the Shatterrealm webcomic. “I am either growing/preserving/baking my own food or taking the briefest possible trips to ALDI, which doesn’t carry much that isn’t food.”

Complaints notwithstanding, this early holidays trend is simply more pronounced than in previous years, said one expert on trade.

“The trend in holiday season over [the] past few years has been that it is spreading across more months and starting early,” Hitendra Chaturvedi, professor of supply chain management at Arizona State University, told the Washington Examiner. “Retailers have already realized it.”

He pointed to retail giant Amazon as one example, which has “more than one sales event” leading up to the holidays. Black Friday offerings are only one of its big sales.

Chaturvedi added, “I have talked about this [in] the past that 50% of the customers will start their holiday shopping in October. Only about 10% of shoppers will be left to do shopping in December and the retailers are taking note. Retailers are also betting to take an early share of some of the student loan payments that are coming soon.”

There were barriers to offering earlier sales in the past, but e-commerce is changing things, he said.

“Traditional brick-and-mortar required a lot of setup to prepare for holiday sales, so it used to happen all around December,” Chaturvedi explained. “With e-commerce, setup costs are low[er] to run a huge sale,” and brick-and-mortar stores are trying to keep up.

The Arizona State professor added that supply chains played little role in this move by retailers, though it’s true that improved supply chains have made global coordination much easier.

Better conditions for retail shipment have both passive and active causes. Passive improvements have to do with the unwinding of COVID-19 restrictions and the global return to normalcy on that front. Active improvements are more complicated.

A McKinsey & Company survey of supply chain leaders found that 95% had faced “footprint” supply chain challenges over the past year and that every single one of them had taken steps to “make their supply chains more flexible, agile, and resilient.”

Just about two-thirds, or “66% of supply chain leaders said their companies brought suppliers closer to their main markets, a 34% increase from 2022. … Four in 10 (42%) of companies said they made moves to nearshore production, a 25% increase year-over-year. A similar number (44%) of respondents said their companies increased backup production sites in the past year, up from 22% in 2022,” McKinsey reported in October.

Gains from AI technology are also helping some supply chains to improve, which is making it easier to deliver the goods. By taking a “cognitive approach” to supply chains, for instance, IBM has “managed to maintain a 100% order fulfillment rate to its clients and reduce supply chain costs $160 million,” the Acceleration Economy website reported.

These significant savings by IBM were made possible by leaps in machine learning and better analytics. Though many large retailers have not seen such dramatic results yet, advances in technology are helping at the margin.

The jury is still out on whether earlier sales will provide a big boost for retailers, however. Many consumers profess disgust at the widening of the holiday selling season, yet economists distinguish between stated and revealed preferences. Stated preferences are what we say; revealed preferences are what we actually do. Actions can and do change in response to incentives such as lowered prices that these sales provide.

Some early mass feedback could bode well for this strategy.

“As trends this year shift toward retailers launching holiday sales, promotions and deals earlier, more than one in four holiday shoppers (28%) would consider starting their shopping earlier than usual,” Gallup reported in October, based on early September polling.

Additionally, “Asked more generally when they planned to start shopping this year, 41% of U.S. holiday shoppers intend to start their shopping before November,” the pollster said.

Uncertainty over this new sales strategy, as well as concerns about the overall direction of the economy, could be contributing to the recent overall softening in retail stocks. Stock prices of retailers such as Kohl’s, Foot Locker, and Nike have taken significant hits recently, and some firms are warning of a soft economy as we go into the holidays.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Credit card bills are showing a “post-summer moderation in spending,” according to an October report by the Bank of America Institute. “Within total card spending per household, retail spending (excluding restaurant spending) declined 0.9% [year over year] in September,” BAI reported. It framed this result as an “improvement on the decline of 1.4% YoY in August.”

Overall, “Consumer spending has been fairly flat over the last two months,” the report found. If earlier holiday sales can’t reverse that trend, then it’s going to mean a joyless Christmas and an unhappy New Year for many retailers.