Christmas season already starting at many stores

Monday, August 28, 2006 Santa Claus is coming to town — already. PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER PHILADELPHIA — It's that special time of year again, when the first plush Santas, singing snowmen and blown-glass Christmas ornaments begin to appear on store shelves. You know. August. What, you find it hard to muster yuletide spirit when you're wearing a bathing suit? Well, too bad. At T.J. Maxx in Norristown, Pa., 2-foot-tall Santa figurines are already watching over a clutch of silver stocking-hangers, wooden-soldier nutcrackers and glittery tabletop trees. A few doors down, at the Dollar Tree, Frosty snow globes wait near the cash registers, not far from a selection of red-and-green ornaments. At the Cracker Barrel Old Country Store in Plymouth Meeting, Pa., a full-size Christmas tree is up and shining. Below its boughs, a toy Santa blows a saxophone, though it's hard to hear his version of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" while a nearby mechanical snowman is crooning "Jingle Bells." "It's a retail mentality that you need to be first out of the gate, and people keep making the race longer and longer," said William Cody, managing director of the Baker Retailing Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. Labor Day, Columbus Day and Halloween, much less Thanksgiving, are now mere speed bumps on the highway to Christmas, folded into the 115-day month of Septoctnocember. Researchers call it "Christmas creep." That's shorthand for the ever-backward march of the holiday retail season. Reaction "It burns me up," said Carter Lee, who is rearing two daughters with her husband, Peter Maas, in Haddonfield, N.J. "It makes me want to go the other way. It makes me not want to buy anything." It's not that area malls are decked in garlands. If last year is a gauge, that won't happen until Nov. 1, followed three weeks later by the arrival of Santa and his crew. It's that Christmas accoutrement — so far, no Hanukkah goods have been spotted — are being set out while people are still slapping mosquitoes. The pitch for other holidays comes early, too. Halloween candy has been in grocery stores for weeks, raising the question of why anyone would want to serve, much less eat, a three-month-old Snickers bar. But experts say the Christmas season starts earliest because it's crucial to retailers. In 2004, shopping malls took in $227.8 billion — 28 percent of their annual sales — in November and December, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers. If a retailer can boost its take by getting customers in the holiday mood earlier, it's worth it. What's undetermined The question is whether the jump-start results in increased sales — in which case Rudolph may someday appear arm and arm with the Easter Bunny — or whether it only spreads the same dollars over a longer period. No one has a definitive answer. "To the extent that you, the retailer, are there, and your competitor isn't, you may grab a few extra dollars," said Stephen Hoch, chairman of the marketing department at Wharton. The danger, he said, isn't just in turning off consumers, but in becoming a prisoner to that promotion. One way retail sales are measured is year against year. If going early brought in extra dollars last year, a store is almost forced to go out as early, or earlier, this year. Cracker Barrel put up Christmas displays on Aug. 1. Terry Maxwell, senior vice president of retail of the Tennessee-based restaurant-store chain, compared them to the previews before a movie, a way to offer "just a little hint of the coming season." He wouldn't disclose figures, but he said Cracker Barrel has found that having Christmas items out in summer generates additional purchases, not just early ones. "We're doing quite a bit better than what we anticipated," Maxwell said. Another view Gary Sugarman, chief operating officer of Steve & Barry's University Sportswear, doesn't like stores to haul out the Christmas stock before November. It's a marketing crutch, he said, store managers thinking "people buy lots at Christmas, and I want to extend that as far as I can." His company, which operates 130 branches, will begin transitioning to Christmas in early November, "so that by Black Friday, we're speaking the vocabulary that everybody's ready to listen to." Analyst Stephanie Hoff, who follows big retailers such as Target, Wal-Mart and Macy's for the investment firm Edward Jones, said the economy has forced stores to speak up early. Last year Wal-Mart accelerated its start, to early November from late November, and other chains followed. They saw their lower-income customers being battered by rising gasoline prices and home-heating costs, Hoff said, and sought to "capture some spending" before folks were tapped out. This year those stores will probably do the same, she said. And others will, too. So what's that? You don't want to think about winter yet? You'd like to wait until the back-to-school sales are over? Sorry. Get out your parka and pass the eggnog. There are only 133 shopping days left until Christmas.