While many families are still returning from trips and finishing their back-to-school shopping, several retailers are getting into the Christmas spirit.
But what about Halloween? And someone should think about Thanksgiving, right?
Don’t be surprised to find illuminated elves, inflatable Santa decorations appearing alongside scary hanging skeletons, glowing tombstones, and pumpkins.
Stores have been making Christmas merchandise available earlier and earlier in recent years. In 2021, Amazon and Walmart, fearing lukewarm demand due to the pandemic, started their year-end sales in October. The same pattern was repeated last year, effectively extending the holiday shopping season.
Could Christmas in summer become the norm?
Industry experts suspect that shoppers are seeing Christmas-themed items in the middle of this summer for a few reasons.
“There are two reasons why Christmas merchandise is showing up in August. First is because retailers sold out their summer stock and need to put something on the shelves,” said Nikki Baird, vice president of strategy at retail technology company Aptos to CNN.
“The other is that they have Christmas stock stored from last year,” she added.
Retailers also have a justification for the early Christmas push.
Home Depot stated that it replicated the pattern it used in previous years to boost sales of festive items, like giant Santa decorations, after noticing growing customer demand for Christmas products.
Competitor Lowes also noted that, over the past two years, there has been an increase in online searches on the company’s website for holiday decorations starting as early as July.
Source: CNN