Holiday '08 Marketing Outlook

Well it is a bit difficult to think, talk or write about anything else right now except for something related to the state of our country's economy. However, despite what our Congress or the stock market does today, the calendar will still move on which is something that we have absolutely no control over. Today is now and forever, October 1st, the official start of 2008's 4th quarter and the beginning of the holiday sales season.

For any of us in marketing we realize that this is the make it or break it quarter for the year. Already the holiday selling season is looking as dismal as it's ever been. Think about it? Who's going to spend money on holiday gifts when they can hardly pay last month's bills?

BIG Research released their monthly September report today that focuses on economic and consumer insights. In this they released their Advanced Holiday '08 Outlook. So, you want to hear more?

• Only a minor 4.7% indicate they plan to spend more on gifts this year compared to last, lowering from 6.9% who said the same one year ago. 
• One in three (31.4%) plans to spend the same (v. 37.4% in ’07)
• Two in five (39.0%) intend on spending less (v. 30.9% last year)

Big Research claims that retailers can benefit from knowing who the likely “Big Spenders” vs. the “Penny Pinchers” are. Believe it or not this season's spenders are more likely to be male, younger, and maintain higher household incomes than their penny pinching counterparts. The research states that $60.1% of females will be the "Penny Pinchers" this year, meaning they're going to spend less, as compared to only 39.9% of males. I think these numbers are probably a little skewed since women still do the major of the shopping, especially holiday shopping.

The report also goes on to say that Cyber Monday will most likely continue to grow with holiday shoppers going online to find the best prices on holiday gifts. 91.0% contend they already regularly or occasionally surf the web to research products online.

The most popular categories researched online are:

• Electronics (43.3%)
• Apparel (22.9%)
• Appliances (22.9%)
• Home Improvement (19.4%)
• Shoes (19.0%)

To no real surprise, the most frequently searched sites are:

• Google (25.6%)
• Amazon (8.9%)
• Yahoo (5.5%)
• eBay (2.8%)

With apparel being the historical holiday gifting favorite, Big Research asked consumers which sites they plan to frequent this holiday season for clothing, shoes, and accessories items:

• WalMart.com (4.7%)
• eBay.com (4.5%)
• JCPenney.com (4.3%)
• Amazon.com (3.7%)
• Kohls.com (3.1%)   
• No Preference (46.5%)

Almost half of these "No Preference" respondents, the"open-minded shoppers", could be lured to sites offering special bonuses, free shipping, and exclusive merchandise.

Next is the Top 5 offline, retail stores for women’s clothing :

• Wal-Mart maintains the lead (11.7%), relatively flat from 11.9% a year ago
• Kohl’s (8.0%), also flat (7.8% in ’07)
• JC Penney (6.4%)
• Macy’s (5.8%)
• Target (2.7%)

Now here's the Top 5 retailers related to Men’s clothing:

• Wal-Mart also dominates (15.3%), rising from 14.4% one year ago
• Kohl’s (8.7%), growing from 7.7%
• JC Penney (8.4%), growing from 7.9%
• Macy’s (5.6%)
• Sears (3.3%)

Now as far as shoes go, and us women all know we love our shoes, the latest battle for the lead goes on:

• Payless in the lead for the second consecutive month (11.2%)
• Wal-Mart  (10.8%)
• Kohl’s (5.1%
• DSW (3.6%)
• Macy’s & JC Penney (tied, 3.2% each)

However, no matter what the economics state of our economy today, most marketers have had their holiday campaigns set for awhile and will continue to roll them out over the next few weeks. We'll see inf any of them fine tune their campaigns to be more relevant with what's going on with today's economic crisis. So, from now till the end of the year I will be reporting on some of this year's big holiday '08 promotions. Whether they are still relevant or not. So stayed tuned.

Comments

[Donna DeClemente]

Yes Mary you bring up some good points. Families need to decide where and how to cut back. We made a pact in my extended family quite a while ago that we would just purchase gifts for the kids, not adults.

Now I wouldn't want to see what would happen if all the advertising stopped. It would put many of us in the marketing and advertising industry out of a job!

[Mary Schmidt]

While I feel for independent small retailers this holiday season - personally, I think this might actually be a good thing for us as a society. (Oh there I go again!) Every holiday season people spend money they don't have on more things they don't need.

And, our economy simply can't be based on consumer spending, particularly when those consumers' incomes don't justify their expenditures.

It'd be interesting (if possible) to see what would happen if the retailers didn't spend millions on advertising, but instead spent the money on better employee benefits and customer service. Hmmm....