A Christmas themed cartoon from the great Tom Fishburne…
Original post at “Christmas creep” and well worth a read.
Christmas promotions from retailers seem to be starting ever-earlier. So how early is too early?
“It will be interesting to see how the Christmas Creep bandwagon continues in coming years, as retailers navigate the holiday shopping pressure and balance how best to listen to their consumers. Some consumers genuinely want deals earlier in the year. Others see it as an invasion. I imagine the best approach will be different for every retailer. What might work for Kmart won’t necessarily work for Neiman Marcus.”
In many cases, a lot of these promotions smack of desperation to me and marketers who have no coherent plan.
Of course I am a big advocate of planning ahead but that’s a different issue to actually launching a promotion.
And, of course, people differ. Some like to get all their Christmas shopping done early (even starting straight after Christmas on shopping for the following year!). It’s reported that over 40% of people do start their shopping before the end of October.
Others will pretty much leave everything to the last minute.
So there’s no one answer, but I’d suggest…