One of the unusual aspects of Christmas shoppers is that they can often stay on budget and resist overspending all the way up to the last few days before Christmas. Then stores start putting on special sales with the sole purpose of luring shoppers into one last spending spree. Consumers can easily find themselves with charged up credit cards or low cash savings balances when they just can’t resist those last minute deals.
Did you know approximately 12% of shoppers wait until Christmas Eve to start shopping? Last minute shoppers are not new, but the stores are really working hard to convince people they need to shop until the last minute this year. Walk into any store right now and you’ll find plenty of merchandise begging to be purchased. That’s because it’s just not moving the way it normally does this time of year.
To lure shoppers, many of the chain stores are staying open later to give people more time and opportunity to shop. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Toys R Us Inc. are two examples of stores hoping to convince shoppers to spend more. The national numbers so far indicate that consumers are spending less this year as would be expected given the unemployment rate of 10 percent that persists .
The holiday season is when many stores turn a profit for the year. But the slow economic recovery and high unemployment is leading to a 1 percent drop in consumer spending or holiday sales. This is the number the National Retail Federation is reporting as their estimate.
Retail stores are choosing later hours of operation as their marketing strategy for expense reasons. It doesn’t cost much to add some hourly workers to sell inventory already purchased and sitting on shelves. But consumers are wary of these marketing strategies because household finances are still tight.
According to BIGresearch almost 19 percent of shoppers had not even started shopping as of last week. The question is whether they plan on shopping this week or are they like many households and giving homemade and personalized gifts this year.
Wal-Mart will be keeping its stores open two hours later than normal on Christmas Eve. The stores will be open until 8 PM. Toys R Us will stay open until 1 A.M. Most Target stores will remain open until midnight the day before Christmas.
Consumers on a budget will have to resist spending more than they planned for the holiday as the stores step up their campaign meant to convince shoppers to spend additional money on presents. Though consumer spending assists the economy, most consumers are trying to reduce their debt and increase their savings. Avoiding binge spending can go a long way towards preventing the accumulation of holiday debt.
By the way…remember those past Christmas holidays when you couldn’t find that hot item for your children? There doesn’t seem to be any truly hot items this year. It’s yet another sign the recession continues to have an impact on the gift giving business. Fortunately this makes it easier to stick to a budget.
Tags: christmas debt, christmas shopping, credit card debt
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