'Holiday creep' means seasonal merchandise hits stores earlier every year

Sep. 16—It used to be just "Christmas creep," but now it's a general "holiday creep" — the practice of stores putting out seasonal merchandise further and further in advance of the actual holidays.

It's not something Cindy Miller of Connellsville is necessarily noticing when she goes out shopping, but she falls prey to it just the same.

"When I see something I like, I get it," she said during a recent stop at Barbara Ann's Country Home Furnishings in Westmoreland Mall. "If you don't get it now, it might not be there later."

That's the conundrum for shoppers and retailers alike — if everyone else is doing it, you better do it too.

"I definitely feel the push to do it earlier and earlier," said Nicole Vigilante, owner of Trovo Co., a New Kensington store offering vintage and handmade home decor. "People coming in know they have to get this stuff before it's all gone."

Christmas creep has been around for a long time. Retailers started pushing the holiday season forward as early as the 1950s, according to dictionary.com, with the phrase itself popping up in a 1986 article in the Los Angeles Times.

The phenomenon was exacerbated in 2008, as retailers looked to maintain their revenue streams during the economic recession. The boom in online shopping that followed left brick-and-mortar stores scrambling even more to compete for consumer dollars.

Thus, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Valentine's Day and Easter creeps were added to the mix.

"With Amazon Prime Days and the competitive events it spawned, the cycle is starting earlier than ever," said John Dick, founder and CEO of CivicScience Inc., a Pittsburgh market research firm. "Consumers are looking to shop earlier to avoid any risk of product availability later in the season, while sellers are looking to capture dollars from consumers before anyone else does."

Supply and demand

Supply chain issues during the pandemic added another layer of urgency to holiday preparedness, according to a CivicScience research report.

"With 'supply chain issues' being the story of the holiday season last year, we saw consumers start their holiday shopping earlier than ever," according to a Consumer Holiday Tracker Syndicated Research Report the firm issued in August. "We're already observing indications of people shopping for the holidays even earlier this year.

"Already, more than 2-in-5 American adults are thinking about and preparing for the holidays right now, and nearly a third of holiday shoppers (29%) have already begun their shopping for this year."

The report said that pace puts shoppers ahead of where they were in early October of 2019 and 2020 and nearly at the point they were at the end of last September.

Although "it's all holidays all year-round" at the Holiday Home Store in Ligonier, owner Pat Baker said she notices shoppers looking for new holiday merchandise earlier every year. Her new stock of Halloween items was on display by July 1.

"Halloween is hitting even earlier than before. People are looking in June," she said.

Many of those people actually are doing their Christmas shopping, she said, because they're buying for people who collect decor not only for Halloween, but for a variety of holidays.

There's also a summer Christmas shopping surge at Barbara Ann's, according to owner Amy McKnight, and weddings are responsible. Like the Holiday Home Store, Barbara Ann's sells seasonal and holiday merchandise all year long.

"People are buying gifts for bridal showers," McKnight said. "They want to buy the bride a decoration for Christmas, or maybe for every holiday."

Shoppers give a variety of reasons for going along with holiday creep, said Kristina Morrison, a sales associate at RSVP Gifts and More in Hempfield.

Some say they need to spread out their holiday spending and not be overwhelmed by the January credit card bill, Morrison said. Others just enjoy the nonstop fall-to-winter holiday season and want to make it last as long as possible.

"They want to be prepared," she said. "Me, I'm still enjoying my summer."

Independent retailers also have to follow the lead of the big box stores if they want to survive, Morrison said. If big box stores have Christmas merchandise out in October, the small stores have to follow suit.

Advance planning

Retailers also face another kind of pressure behind the scenes, Baker said, with suppliers putting out the next year's merchandise far in advance.

"Maybe it's still because of covid and the supply chain (issues), but we've had to buy everything earlier," she said.

In the past, she has traveled to gift shows in Atlanta in January to buy merchandise for the following fall.

"We had to have our spring orders in by September," she said. "You have to get it while you can, because you might not be able to get it later."

Overall, holiday creep is a boon for shoppers, Dick said.

"It's most all 'pros' for the consumer. They have the opportunity to spread out the financial impact of holiday shopping and avoid the frantic last-minute rush and fears of shipping delays," he said. "The only possible con is the risk that a product might be available at a lower cost later in the season."

It might be more of a mixed bag for sellers, Dick said, as large or small, online or in-person, they all compete for the same dollars.

"Holiday retail is a zero-sum game," he said. "One of the big pros for retailers is that it allows them to win the early shopper before they go to a competitor, while better managing inventories throughout the season.

"A big con is that it doesn't allow them to capitalize on late-breaking product trends and fads as the holidays get closer."

Somewhere, buyers may draw a line on holiday creep, but it's not apparent yet where that line will be.

"Is there a limit to the consumer's tolerance for holiday creep? Probably. Do we know where that limit lies right now? No," Dick said. "I would expect this trend to move earlier and earlier until the retailers see diminishing returns."

In the meantime, retailers will give the people what they want, whether they are buying into it themselves or not.

"I saw Valentine's candy in one of the big box stores at Thanksgiving," Baker said. "It's kind of ridiculous."

"Personally, I like to be more in the moment," Vigilante said.

And not every shopper is swayed by holiday creep, McKnight said. At Christmastime, those people tend to fall into one of two categories.

"Either they love the hustle and bustle of holiday shopping, or they're procrastinators," she said.

Shirley McMarlin is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Shirley by email at smcmarlin@triblive.com or via Twitter .