Are Christmas shopping forecasters secret Scrooges? Some retailers think so. They contend mainstream media tends to deck the malls with doom and gloom in their holiday shopping forecasts.
Holiday shopping forecasts often are moving targets. The National Retail Federation, which last month forecast a basically flat shopping season this year, now predicts 134 million of us will be lining up outside discount stores at O-Dark-30 tomorrow.
What we'll be doing there is anybody's guess. Really. Relatively few of us plan to cut back our holiday spending, but we'll be watching our money more closely, we've told pollsters for Upromise.com. Quite a few of us, though not as many as last year, plan to cut back, but will be freer with our money, we told a joint Consumer Federation of America/Credit Union National Association survey. If you do the math, some of us fibbed.
I think there's another reason it might not seem holiday festive yet. Even though the recession is over, according to the double domes, many communities are cutting back on holiday decorations this year because money is tight. Holiday event planners are feeling a pinch too.
Showing posts with label christmas shopping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label christmas shopping. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Blue Christmas - oldies and some not so goodies.
Christmas clubs are back. That can't be a great omen for retailers.
Christmas clubs, for those of you who don't remember a president before Ronald Reagan, are savings plans consumers use when they expect financially leaner holidays. Some people think the plans are kitschy and a bad deal. They're wrong.
Sears and Kmart, which are pushing the plans this year, are the same two retailers who resuscitated layaway plans last year. However, Walmart, the nation's largest retailer, phased out its layaway program three years ago and appears to be counting on cutting prices to win customers. Discounts and instant gratification are always winners.
Even that looks a bit dicey this time around. Some retailers ran into a new competitor during the just ended Halloween season, which has become sort of a warm up for Christmas. Home made gifts. Merchants are fighting back.
Plus there is one more Christmas shopping budget stretcher retailers worry about. Shoplifting, already a $30 billion dollar business in the U.S. by FBI estimates, appears to be on the rise, the National Retail Federation.
Remember to turn off the home alarm for Santa.
Christmas clubs, for those of you who don't remember a president before Ronald Reagan, are savings plans consumers use when they expect financially leaner holidays. Some people think the plans are kitschy and a bad deal. They're wrong.
Sears and Kmart, which are pushing the plans this year, are the same two retailers who resuscitated layaway plans last year. However, Walmart, the nation's largest retailer, phased out its layaway program three years ago and appears to be counting on cutting prices to win customers. Discounts and instant gratification are always winners.
Even that looks a bit dicey this time around. Some retailers ran into a new competitor during the just ended Halloween season, which has become sort of a warm up for Christmas. Home made gifts. Merchants are fighting back.
Plus there is one more Christmas shopping budget stretcher retailers worry about. Shoplifting, already a $30 billion dollar business in the U.S. by FBI estimates, appears to be on the rise, the National Retail Federation.
Remember to turn off the home alarm for Santa.
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