If it feels like Christmas has come earlier than expected this year, you’re not alone.
Influencers were posting personalized holiday trunks in October and Target was piping Mariah Carey (the undisputed queen of Christmas music) through its stores as soon as Halloween was over.
The reasons it feels early this year? The calendar, the economy and the election, experts and entrepreneurs say.
Black Friday, previously just the Friday after Thanksgiving, has now spread to practically the entire month of November, according to Douglas Bowman, a professor of marketing at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School.
This year, because Thanksgiving is in the last week of November, there are only 26 days between Black Friday and Christmas compared to 31 days last year, Bowman told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“You lose a weekend,” he said. “(That) kind of makes it a little bit more challenging and also an impetus to start Black Friday, or Black November, a little bit earlier.”
He added that Christmas falling on a Wednesday this year is another calendar constraint on holiday sales. When it falls earlier in the week, say Monday or Tuesday, people typically have a long weekend away from work to get shopping done. But this year many people may still go into work that Monday before Christmas, limiting how much time they have to get gifts.
But starting the holiday season earlier can put consumers in “a shopping mood for a longer period of time,” Bowman said. Target started its holiday shopping deals on Nov. 1 this year and had an early Black Friday sale from Nov. 7 to Nov. 9. Best Buy started its Black Friday deals on Nov. 8 and Walmart started on Nov. 11.
Darby Clark (@darbyfallonclark), an Atlanta-based Instagram influencer, told the AJC that since Thanksgiving feels so late this year, as soon as Halloween was over, she pulled out her Christmas decor and started setting it out day by day. She also launched a holiday children’s clothes capsule with Dillard’s in October and said sales have been strong.
“With Thanksgiving being so much later this year, I found that people were excited to shop for holiday clothing as early as possible,” Clark said in an email.
The National Retail Federation, a retail trade association, is expecting holiday sales to reach at least $979.5 billion, slightly higher than the record numbers reached last year. The NRF considers the holiday sales period to be Nov. 1 to Dec. 31.
But though the NRF is bullish about holiday sales, Bowman sees warning signs. Target announced weaker than expected third quarter results last week, which had analysts worried about its holiday sales. Fast-food restaurants like Burger King’s parent company have missed sales forecasts. To Bowman, that signals a more interesting holiday season than retailers were forecasting a few months ago.
He thinks holiday sales by dollar amount will be higher this year than last, but mainly because inflation has made the cost of goods higher.
This is not the first time a late Thanksgiving and a shortened holiday shopping season has caused concern. Up until 1939, Thanksgiving was celebrated on the last Thursday of November. But that year, the holiday would have fallen on the last day of the month and then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt was concerned a shortened holiday shopping season could dampen the country’s economic recovery from the Great Depression.
So, Roosevelt issued a proclamation moving the holiday to the second to last Thursday in November. This caused a schism among the states, with some choosing to stick to celebrating it on the last Thursday of the month and others using Roosevelt’s new date. In 1941, Congress settled the issue, passing a resolution that made the fourth Thursday of November the legal Thanksgiving holiday.
The Black Friday tradition of deals came later, but this year consumers, especially low-income and middle-class shoppers, are looking for ways to save money as inflation has squeezed budgets, Bowman said.
“I don’t think people are going to necessarily cut spending altogether, but they’ll certainly, I think, put more effort into looking for value,” he explained.
But as big-box stores slash prices to lure customers, small businesses can’t necessarily keep up.
“Small businesses are facing an uphill battle this holiday season,” Ted Rossman, a senior industry analyst at Bankrate, said in a news release. “It’s tough for them to win on price and that’s a major consideration for inflation-weary shoppers.”
However, a longer holiday shopping season may benefit small businesses because it gives consumers more weekends to shop, Bowman said.
For Terri-Nichelle Bradley, founder and CEO of Atlanta-based Brown Toy Box, a line of science and technology kits featuring Black characters and historically Black colleges and universities, her sales started to spike early this year.
Credit: Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Credit: Jason.Getz@ajc.com
“Our season doesn’t really start until right around Nov. 1, but we started seeing a trending spike like end of September,” Bradley said. Her products are sold online as well as at Target, museums, aquariums and specialty toy stores.
Bradley said it’s good that her company is seeing an early spike in sales because this holiday season is critical after a disappointing season last year. But she attributes the early spike not to the economy or the calendar, but to Vice President Kamala Harris’ ultimately unsuccessful campaign for president.
“Black women, particularly (45-plus), seemed to be more hopeful and positive than ever,” Bradley said, “and that translated into them supporting Black women businesses.”
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