The sluggish economy has pushed retailers to hype up holiday shopping earlier and earlier, and there is now a lack of significance in the traditional time frame Americans celebrate the holidays.

The American culture rushes from Halloween right into celebrating and shopping for the holidays, which means when you were out buying candy for trick-or-treaters, chances are you also saw some displays for Thanksgiving dinners.

But this year, businesses and the media have started to hype up the holidays and Black Friday sales weeks before Thanksgiving.

“We started the transition into Christmas and holiday decorations a couple days before Halloween,” the Target on Riverside Drive team leader Zach Salazar said. “We moved the Halloween and fall stuff to sale and pushed it to the back and displayed holiday products in the front.”

Salazar said people spend more money for Christmas decorations than Thanksgiving. So it makes more sense for Target stores to begin selling these items early, then by the time the holiday is getting near prices can be cut on what they displayed in October.

The reason businesses are so ready to jump into the holiday franchise is because of the fiscal strategy behind this part of the year.

The holiday season falls right into the same time frame as the fourth fiscal quarter of the year for businesses, which runs from Oct. 1 through Dec. 31.

This time of the year is the final stretch for retailers to make profit and this is even the origin of the term “Black Friday” itself.

Prior to this final quarter businesses are still in the “red,” but after the holiday shopping madness their numbers should rollover into the “black” meaning they have made a profit on the year.

So although the rush into holiday sales may be overwhelmingly early, the reason behind it is new business strategy during hard economic times.

“The issue here is twofold,” Sacramento State dean of the College of Business Administration Sanjay Varshney said. “One is the fact that consumer spending has become such large portion of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), increasing from around 55 to 60 percent to now more than 70 percent.”

The early push for holidays represents the business sector’s attempt at earning a profit during the final stretch of the year, because this can make or break a business during these troubled economic state facing the country.

“Businesses really rely on consumer spending during those two or three months in order to make a profit on the year,” Varshney said. “There is more and more pressure on these folks to come out earlier, as we’ve seen Black Friday turn into Black Thursday with stores like Wal-Mart and Target opening three or fours hours earlier than they did last year.”

Varshney said the recent revolution in early holiday hype reflects the sluggish state of the economy, and businesses are trying anything to make sure they make their money.

“The second issue with new business strategies is that competition between retailers is now changing,” Varshney said. “That is why you’re now seeing store like Wal-Mart introducing groceries and becoming competition for Raley’s grocery stores.”

The purpose of the holidays is now to boost the economy, and the recent downturn means this time of year is more vital than ever for businesses.

Pushing back the holiday hype further and further has become outrageous, but the strategy behind it means this new tradition is probably here to stay.

Next year we should just skip the middleman and start celebrating Thanksgiving the week following Halloween – that way there is no holding back on when businesses can capitalize on consumers.

 

Samantha can be reached at: [email protected]