Why the shorter selling season is good for store owners
By Alan Wolf, YSN
This holiday season there are only 27 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas — five fewer than last year.
While logic would suggest that fewer shopping days means less opportunity to sell, legendary retail analyst Marshal Cohen argues otherwise.
In a recent column for Circana, a market research firm for which he serves as chief retail advisor, Cohen said the truncated selling season actually works in retailers’ favor. For one thing, the ticking Christmas clock only adds to the frenzy for last-minute shoppers, spurring more spontaneous purchases. “More frenzy means more excitement and more impulse shopping,” he wrote. “And impulse shopping is critical to retail growth, particularly at brick-and-mortar stores.”
Procrastination Nation
What’s more, seasonal research by Circana shows that more than 20% of U.S. consumers don’t even begin their holiday shopping until sometime in December, while a separate study by Google cites the week after Christmas as the fastest growing period of the holiday season. The reason: with gift-giving over, folks can cash in all those holiday-stocking gift cards and exchange any unwanted presents for the products they actually longed for.
To make the most of this post-Black Friday frenzy, Cohen advises retailers and manufacturers to capture consumers’ attention by carefully strategizing. “When there is less urgency to shop from a value-driven, deal-seeking consumer,” he said, “with few hot products being sought out, the holiday timing frenzy becomes retail’s best friend.”
