Retailers Celebrate ?Holidaze?

Once upon a time, the Christmas season was about a month long, beginning on the day after Thanksgiving and ending on Dec. 25.

Now, Santa Claus elbows vampires and werewolves for shelf space before Halloween. And January is like a holiday hangover as shoppers wait for clearance sales, return presents and redeem gift cards.

From the Northwest Arkansas Mall to Sam’s Club in Springdale, Christmas displays were in windows and on sales floors in mid- to late October. Outside, in Arkansas’ 80-degree Indian summer, leaves were just beginning to turn from green to brown.

“Several decades ago, retail employees who drew the short straws would come in on Thanksgiving and put decorations up so the customers would see the decorations for the first time when they went in the store on Friday,” said Dan Barry, a Merrill Lynch analyst and Wall Street’s leading authority on Christmas as a retail extravaganza.

“Today, when the Halloween merchandise is out, the Christmas decorations go up. So it’s very different.”

The change began a decade ago, Barry said. Since then, Halloween has become the No. 2 holiday for retail sales next to Christmas. It basically turns the entire fourth quarter of the year into a make-it-or-break-it time for retailers, accounting for 40 percent of U.S. general merchandise sales and 50 percent of sales for many specialty stores.

Wal-Mart Levels Santa

Tom Jensen, chairman of the marketing and transportation department in the University of Arkansas’ Walton College of Business, said the biggest trend in the last 10 years is the decline of December in total retail sales.

December accounted for 10.5 percent of U.S. retail sales (not counting automobiles) in 1992 and 10.0 percent in 2003.

That half percent would translate to $17 billion in 2003. Total retail sales for the year (minus cars) was $3.4 trillion.

Barry said some of that money went to January, as consumers wait for after-Christmas sales and redeem gift cards. January accounted for 24.7 percent of first-quarter sales this year, compared to 20.5 percent a decade ago.

But Jensen thinks more of the change could be attributed to the rise of giant retailers like Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Because of those low-price stores, more shopping dollars are being spread throughout the year, he said.

“Wal-Mart may be accounting for quite a bit of leveling,” said Jensen, who also holds a chair at the UA called the Wal-Mart Lectureship in Retailing. “When you look at it, it’s not going to January. That’s not where the big change is going.”

The first quarter of the year has historically been the weakest for retailers as consumers await the spring thaw and retailers mark down merchandise to get people into the stores. February, normally the weakest retail month of the year, accounted for 7.1 percent of non-auto retail sales last year, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers, which monitors 80 retail chains.

According to the ICSC, November and December retail sales last year accounted for about 2 percent less of holiday sales now than they did in 1980 (22.8 percent in 2003 vs. 24.7 percent in ’80).

Since the shift of the holiday retail season forward into October took place in the late 1980s and early ’90s, Jensen said, statistics over the past decade don’t show much of a change for October and November sales. Each of those months accounted for about 8.4 percent or non-auto retail sales last year, down about one-tenth of a percent from 1992.

Christmas 2004

The ICSC said sales at stores open at least a year were up 4 percent this past October, when compared to the same month of 2003. The October performance was better than expected, the ICSC said, led by relative strength in the apparel chains, department stores, footwear and wholesale clubs.

The ICSC predicted comparable-store sales to increase by 3 to 4 percent in November, bolstered by cold weather expected late in the month.

Barry is predicting same-store sales this coming Christmas to be up 4.9 percent for general merchandise, compared to 5.6 percent last year. U.S. general merchandise sales includes department, discount and warehouse stores but not apparel and specialty stores (like electronics retailers).

“We’re looking for a lackluster Christmas,” Barry said. “It’s not going to be great. Last Christmas was great.”

Barry said everything from gasoline prices to unemployment would put a damper on this year’s holiday sales.

As retailers try to stretch the Christmas into the October, Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, remains the crucial day that serves as a predictor of how all-important December sales will go.

“The holiday season seems to be getting earlier and earlier,” Jensen said. “I think the day after Thanksgiving is still the biggest shopping day. That’s not going to change.”

For the first time on record, Black Friday was the biggest shopping day of the 2003 holiday season instead of the Saturday before Christmas.

Worried about the holiday season, retailers promoted Black Friday sales throughout November, said Patrice Duker, marketing manager for the ICSC.

Wal-Mart announced on Nov. 12 that it won’t release the company’s Black Friday sales this year because too much emphasis is put on those numbers. Black Friday falls on Nov. 26 this year.

Xmas Marketing Evolved Oddly

“‘Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,’ grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.” — from “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott, 1868.

A Turkish bishop had no idea what he was starting with his random generosity back in the third and fourth centuries AD. Six centuries later, he was canonized as St. Nicholas.

By the 13th century, French nuns were celebrating the feast of St. Nicholas and leaving food at the doorsteps of the poor. The holiday soon spread to Holland and Germany with gift giving at its core.

At about that time, St. Nick became associated with Christmas and the birth of Christ, although many of the traditions of Christmas, such as caroling from house to house, date back 4,000 years to ancient Mesopotamia.

Retailers began using Santa Claus as a marketing tool in the mid-1800s, advertising themselves as “Santa’s Headquarters.”

In 1867, Macy’s Department Store in New York City stayed open until midnight on Christmas Eve for last-minute shoppers.

In 1870, Macy’s hired its first in-store Santa Claus and began decorating the windows with elaborate “illumination,” according to the firm’s Web site. Santa soon began appearing in department stores across the United States and Canada.

In the early 1890s, the Salvation Army began dressing unemployed men in red Santa Claus suits to ring bells and raise money for the poor.

The image of Santa Claus went through several incarnations in the American psyche. He was depicted as everything from a tall Norse hunter to a dwarf.

The Civil War cartoonist Thomas Nast drew Santa Claus for Harper’s Weekly magazine in 1862, giving him elf-like dimensions and Union leanings.

In 1931, The Coca-Cola Co. commissioned Haddon Sundblom to develop a “wholesome” image of Santa Claus. Today, Sundblom’s Santa is seared into the mind of every American child.

For the next 35 years, Sundblom painted portraits of Santa Claus for Coke’s billboards, signs and print advertisements, according to the company’s Internet site.

Meanwhile, the story of Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer, was being hashed out in 1939 by Robert L. May, a copy writer for Montgomery Ward Co.

Holiday Sales
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