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December 8, 2004
$tores lack Chri$tma$ $pirit
Why, President Roosevelt even changed the week we celebrate Thanksgiving to lengthen this shopping period in order to generate jobs, profits and taxes during the Great Depression. As a boy I remember going into my friend Larry Lindsey's father's hardware store and all the tools had bows on them, wreaths were in the windows and Christmas carols played on the radio by the cash register. The five and dime was decked out in the same manner, and even the rotating candy cane pole at the barbershop had a red ribbon with a little golden bell in the middle tied at the top. Not too long ago, I remember going to Dillard's at the Boulevard Mall just after Halloween, and the second floor entry would be filled with the first of the Christmas specials. Mechanical Santa Clauses of every shape and style stood, sang, danced and told stories for passersby. The linen department was replaced with display shelters filled with ornaments, garland, manger scenes and other Christmas collectibles. In store after store, the words most spoken were about how great was the selection of wonderful items to buy. Whether at Dillard's, J.C. Penney, Macy's, Sears or Wal-Mart, the biggest decision was not what to buy, but how to keep from spending too much. Somehow all that seems to have changed today, and not for the better. Rather than putting their best effort into making this the selling and profit season it really needs to be, it is almost like the retailers are doing nothing more than going through the motions. It really makes me wonder whether all of the store merchandise buyers went to the same vendor convention and bought their line of inventory from the same people. At first I wondered if I was the only person who felt this way, so I purposely have gone to stores in the area to observe how others were handling their Christmas shopping experience. What I discovered was I was not alone in my thinking. More to the point, it appeared I had actually been kind in my assessment in comparison to the verbalizations made by many on sales floors everywhere I went. From the stinginess of the decorations to the limited variety of merchandise on the shelves, there seemed to be a fairly common thread to the complaints overheard. At this point I had to ask myself what has happened to a shopping season once so important to our economy a president would intervene to ensure its success. I began inspecting displays and merchandise even closer. Business news and events were also reviewed to see if anything outside the industry might have been a cause. It didn't take long for a pattern to present itself. Every store had banner ads advising customers to visit their store's website for any items they could not find in the store. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that if you ask your customers to go outside the store to buy, they probably will. This was verified by a recent commerce department report claiming Internet sales in the third quarter of this year are up 14 percent over last year and nearly 5 percent year to date. The good news is consumers can find very good deals on Internet websites. Without leaving their home, folks can order everything from Match Box cars to diamond rings. What it also does is teach people how to shop on the Internet, and find the best deal, which may not be on site of the store that told them to go there in the first place. Another contributing factor to the lack of merchandise is, believe it or not, the war on terror. It seems the hullabaloo about cargo containers was taken more than a bit seriously, and the backlog in some ports is now at three months and counting. Hard for a store to display merchandise they haven't yet received. Wonder if they still count undelivered goods against our trade deficit? While these are all contributing factors, I believe the biggest reason this Christmas selling season may not be what it could be is the lack of Christmas spirit on the part of the major store chains. For them it has become entirely about the stuff. They seem to have replaced the reason most people celebrate this season. It is not just any holiday - it is Christmas. They will sell you outdoor lights but don't have hangers to put them up with. They will sell you ornaments but again, no hangers. They will sell you a fiber optic figure, but don't stock the 12-volt, five-watt bulb needed to make them work. Christmas carols may be heard if you strain to hear them, or you can buy them in the music section. And in all of this, the spirit of love and giving has been lost in simple displays of politically correct "Season's Greetings" instead of "Merry Christmas." All things change, or so they say. For many of us, celebration of the birth of the Christ means more than shopping and always will. So when the stories appear at the end of month of how bad the selling season was or how the retailers suffered because people lost their Christmas spirit, well, I think you will be able to take it from here. Little writes from Pahrump. His column, "The Other Side," appears here on Wednesdays. |
