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Well, it’s just about that time of year again. The time when major big boxes and giant retailers find out if they’ve had a profitable year. Their measurement? It starts with Halloween and ends the first week of the new year.
This year Halloween falls on the very last day of October. So what does this mean for those of us in the powersports industry? More than you might think.
As I write this it’s October 17th. I just came back from doing some errands. I visited the grocery store, the bank and a motorcycle dealership. The bank teller wore a black fake nose and fake cat’s whiskers. She looked cute. There were pumpkins scattered around the bank’s lobby, and other things to remind people that this was the “fun” time of the year. This was not some small local or hick-town bank, it was a branch of The Bank of America.
On to the grocery store. Again, the place was festooned with all manner of things relating to Halloween. Just outside the front door there was a huge pile of pumpkins. Inside there was more orange and black than I’ve seen anywhere other than a Harley-Davidson store.
Next, it was a visit my local motorcycle dealer. How was it decorated? It wasn’t. Maybe the owner’s religion shuns Halloween. Nah …. I don’t think so. Fact is he’s never been much into decorating. “Too time consuming putting all those decorations up only to have to take them down again.”
As I’ve written before, this period of time is when the American buying public spends a whopping 70% of their discretionary income. You may need to go to the bank. You may need to go to the grocery store. You may even need to go to a hardware store. Even so, they seem to get into the holiday spirit and show it with holiday decorations. Keep in mind that as soon as Halloween is over they’ll take down those decorations and immediately replace them with Thanksgiving related visuals. The Monday after Thanksgiving those decorations will be replaced with Christmas remembrances. Yeah, I know its “rank commercialism.” I also know that most of the traditional meanings and significance of these holidays has been reduced by materialism. But that’s a topic for a different article.
Here’s what I would urge those of you reading this to do:
- Get into the spirit!
- Get your people into the sprit.
- Buy some Thanksgiving and Christmas hats, costumes, decorations.
- Get them out and up ASAP.
- Let everyone who works in your store know that this is supposed to be fun.
- Accept the fact that many of your customers will be pressed for time.
- Be proactive with suggestions and gift certificates.
- Have an up-to-date list of impulse items your customer may find worthy.
- Plan on a fashion show.
- Have a ladies only night.
- Have a men’s only night.
- Have Santa Clause in your store the week before Christmas.
- Photograph kids with Santa and their Mom and/or Dad.
- Make a big deal of presenting them with the photo.
- If you have a small and inexpensive dye-sub printer you can give them a very high quality photo almost instantly.
- Send out email messages to all your customers proclaiming that you want to celebrate the holidays with them.
Get into the holiday spirit and participate in the holiday buying frenzy. Or, you could just avoid it and forgo the opportunity to share in that 70% of the consumer’s discretionary dollar that will be spent somewhere else.
Feel free to contact me via e-mail (jwconsulting@comcast.net). I respond to all my e-mail messages, even from those I don’t really like. |
