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Retailers entered the holiday season with dreams of sugar plums dancing in their heads. Unfortunately, it was just a dream. With a 0.1% decline in retail sales year on year, for retailers it was more like “not a creature was buying, not even a blouse.”
Whether analysts called it expectations, projections, or hopes, reality simply did not measure up. In my opinion, “hopes” is the operative word. Year after year retailers and analysts have grown accustomed to pinning their hopes on Christmas shoppers going on a spending spree that will make their entire year. It’s worked so well for so long that is has become a Christmas tradition in retail. So much so that annual budgets and business plans are built on that hope.
Everyone hopes and believes that Christmas will come to the rescue. How many declining Christmas sales will it take for everyone to stop pinning their hopes on the season? The same people who have reduced their spending during the previous 11 months are no longer going to blow their tightened budget just before the end of the year. With interest rates exceeding the limits of usury, people who used to buy on credit cannot afford to any longer. For those who have cash available . . . well, not many of them don’t exist any more. As breadwinners continue to lose jobs, the situation will only get worse.
May I be bold enough (I am. I’m just trying to be polite by asking for your permission.) to compare the traditional hope for retail glory to General George Armstrong Custer’s infamous last stand. He had won so many battles with the Indians, he thought that he would always win, even when he knew that the odds were heavily set against him. He believed that things will always turn out well in the end. When things looked more troublesome that usual, he put his hope in the cavalry sending reinforcements. They did, but they were too late.
And may I suggest (Just trying to be polite again. You know I am going to.) that retailers and strategists find a new paradigm that does not depend so much on one singular month at the end of the year. I have nothing specific to recommend except “Don’t blame it on the economy. Respond to the economy. Rethink retail. Don’t follow — lead.” It’s the fellas and gals in the boardroom who loosen their ties (or lose them altogether) and who get down to some genuinely innovating thinking they will break loose from a paradigm that has come more and more to look like a rut.
Unfortunately, retail is not particularly known for innovative thinking. I submit creating a change so dramatic that it makes shopping at a particular retail outlet or chain as compelling as chocolate to a fat lady. Spend as much time making your compelling potential customers to come to your stores as you do trying to make the in-store experience a pleasant one. If you do, even though Santa may be a little less generous next year, you won’t care. You’ll have already had a Christmas all year long. (Now there’s an idea.)
