Retailers knowingly risk alienating people by starting holiday shopping season early: prof
Posted November 7, 2014 7:08 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – We’ve heard the complaints before: the holiday shopping season starts too early.
It seems no sooner do the Halloween decorations come down, that the halls of most stores are decked with Christmas spangle. But could all the wreaths and ribbons in early November turn some shoppers away?
Marketing professor Lindsay Meredith with SFU argues the possibility of alienating a few shoppers is necessary in the bigger picture.
“If I advertise too early, could I antagonize you and thereby possibly drive a sale away? Yeah, I could,” he tells us. “What’s the other possibly perceived bigger risk? The competitor down the street advertises, I choose not to, and then he gets all the business.”
“So, it’s kind of like a race. Who is going to get into the consumer pocket first? If you wait too long, the other guy gets all the loot and there are still consumers out there, but they’ve bought everything and you’re out of luck.”
He notes the pressure on local retailers comes from not only from each other, but also from online shopping as well as the US.
“American retailers are very good at pulling in that Canadian currency and they advertise early. So the Canadian retailers are pretty much obliged to start advertising early as well because they’re worried the Canadian consumer is going to go spend that money south of the line.”
Meredith says in the end while you might not like it, most retailers will take that risk and kick off the holiday shopping season early.
