As the years go by, Christmas doesn’t seem to be as enjoyable, Christmas seems to be more retail for companies. A lot of companies use the Christmas season for marketing to make more money, but is that tinting the whole experience of Christmas for us all? The holiday has clearly become an important retailer for many big and small businesses. Big stores, such as Walmart, Smiths, Target, Family Dollar, Party City, etc., have been putting holiday merchandise out early for years to start “the festive season”. The stores have started putting Christmas items out on shelves starting mid-November, sometimes even earlier. Analysts have stated that more shoppers have overspend during the festive season than they do during the rest of the year, shoppers tend to overspend on anything that has a limited time, such as the Christman season. “It hurts a lot when you take out your wallet today,” says Joel Davis, executive director of the David F. Miller Retail Center.
The pain of overspending during the Christmas season seems to fade over time until consumers have to pay off extravagant purchases they had made, which some have trouble paying off. Americans’ credit card debt has shot up in the past year to the 1 trillion mark. OnePoll found that one-fifth of Americans who own at least one credit card are unsure they will be able to pay off the card during late November, throughout December, and going on to January of next year. If you can not pay off your entire balance each month, the interest on the unpaid amount will be added to your continuous bill.
When it comes to the categories of Christmas merchandise, each store is competing for the same thing, profit, so each of them wants to make the first strike. Davis notes that for example “There’s only so much Christmas things I can put on my lawn”. Sellers have acknowledged that spenders are wary of spending this year.
Home Improvement is one of the only sites where they started selling Christman decor in July, it’s the earliest anyone has started. They say “We are finding holiday shoppers are spending too much during one time, so we have made our section available throughout the whole year”. Some holiday shoppers have started to spread their shopping throughout the year to make spending easier during December, which is why Home Improvement started selling so early into the year, which is something everyone needs to do for a less stressful season.
