Here it is, mid-September and I’ve seen my first Christmas commercial on television, this one for Summit Hill artificial Christmas trees. Has anyone seen any Christmas commercials earlier than this?
What, are you reigniting the War on Christmas already?
Stranger
My neighbors in Austin would hang up their Christmas lights by mid-October.
I have, but I ignored it and don’t remember what it was for.
Stores have Christmas stuff for sale for at least a week. I’m like, what about Halloween??
PS did you know they are making inflatable Halloween decorations, like the Christmas ones? And orange light strings?
Christmas trees and decorations are nearly always the first Christmas commercials, maybe they take longer to ship? I saw another kind of Xmas commercial two weeks ago, still in August, but I don’t remember what it was for, I blocked it out of my mind.
It’s going to be an anomalous Christmas-retail season. Donny-boy has seen to that.
I believe Costco has been putting their Christmas aisles up by August 1 for a number of years–nothing to do with tariffs. But word is that for all retailers, virtually all Christmas-related items will cost THEM multiples of what they used to cost.
So I suppose it’s smart for the commercials to try to motivate buyers to get their stuff early. Later on those trees may not be available at all. (Or it may be a case of: do you want a tree, OR a house to put it in….you can’t afford both.)
The craft store Hobby Lobby is a major Christmas retailer. They usually have their trees up for sale about now and the supply & variety of them dwindles quickly by the end of October. There are still some to be had as late as 1 Dec, but it’s the dregs.
For as long as I’ve been alive, they start in August. Always. Consider yourself lucky that it took this long.
Since we’ve covered XMAS, let me air my peeve: summer products, pool toys, umbrellas, fun outdoor things, patio furniture, etc seem to go away on Labor Day. But in Arizona, that’s getting to be the time you start using those things. But do retailers acknowledge that we’re different? Keep those things in the store longer? NO! They treat us like we’re Green Bay and it’s going to snow next week.
If it makes you feel any better, we in Florida get the same treatment. I’d blame it on Target’s HQ being in Minneapolis, but all national big boxes are that way.
If they’re smart enough to not ship us snowblowers, how come they’re too stupid to keep shipping us BBQs & pool toys?
I’ve thought about creating a general retailer called “All summer all the time”. With stores only in the southern tier of states.
It’s all about logistics. It, in general, doesn’t make sense to store and maintain inventory for just a couple of regions. You might think you know better but you don’t. That said, I’d be surprised if you can’t get anything you want on Amazon at any time.
By that logic, since half the country never needs winter coats, Target shouldn’t sell them anywhere anytime.
There is a chicken and egg problem that customers in the warm-winter zone have been conditioned to accept that they have to buy seasonal merch according to the northeast’s schedule of seasons. So they unhappily stock up in their wrong time of year and the retailers duly see demand crater in the right time of the year.
As you say, Amazon has been / will fix that.
Come on. They clearly sell enough of them to make it worth it. Again, they know better than you do what is overall the best use of their warehouse real estate and shipping. Their profits are insane. They know what they are doing.