Who Is Driving Earlier Start To Holiday Shopping Season?

It’s July 1st and you’re walking through your favorite local big-box retail store (or the one you tolerate to save all that money every year) and suddenly, despite it being sweltering outside, you find yourself in the middle of an aisle fully stocked with brand new Christmas decorations. You shake your head and snicker as you say under your breath, “Already?!”

You’re not going crazy, my friends. What was once a holiday shopping frenzy that took up the last month of the year has progressed into a full-blown half-year sales and strategy extravaganza for both retailers and consumers. Who is to blame, you ask? Surprisingly, if you do a little digging, you’ll find this is not a one-sided push from retailers, but in fact, the market reacting to the demands of shoppers.  
Trust me when I tell you that retail marketers don’t want to be in holiday shopping season planning meetings in April, but they also recognize that if they wait until September to start thinking about the holiday season, they will have some serious catching up to do!

In fact, a recent CreditCards.com report shows that not only have more than 30 million Americans already started their holiday shopping by September, a full 50 million say they will start earlier this year than last year. Over 6 million Americans claim they are DONE with their holiday shopping by the end of September and nearly 64 million expect to be complete by the end of November.

From the Fiscal Times:

“We love to complain about stores putting up holiday displays earlier and earlier each year, but the truth is that millions of Americans start holiday shopping long before the first Christmas tree appears in a store,” CreditCards.com industry analyst Matt Schultz said in a statement.

So, gone are the days of black-and-white movies where the family piled into the station wagon and went out on December 24th to buy the tree and all the presents as soon as dad got home from work with his bonus. In today’s consumer-driven, always-open, online retail world, you can expect to see the vibrant colors of a fully stocked aisle of decorations on the first day of Q3. Enjoy your 177-day Christmas shopping season, America!