"Dear Editor: I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, 'If you see in in the Sun, it's so.' Please tell me the truth. Is there a Santa Claus?" —Virginia O'Hanlon
In response to the above letter from Virginia, Francis Church wrote a column in the on the spirit of Christmas that has become a perennial classic (http://nanaellen.com/village/cmas/cmas-virginia.htm) this time of year.
If he had received the letter in 2006 instead of 1897, would his answer have been different?
Watching the news last night was a confirmation for me that should have been a wake up call for anyone working in the retail sector. There is a lack of Christmas spirit out there these days, and it is one of the factors driving more traffic out of the malls and onto the Net.
Two of the three business news stories on the national news had a Internet factor to them, and the only business story on the local news was about the drop in foot traffic in stores and the surprising numbers of Internet sales this holiday season.
The Bad News: The Internet is not a passing fad, no matter how much retailers want it to go away.
More Bad News: E-tailers are adapting to retailing faster than retailers are adapting to the Internet.
Even More Bad News: Unless you have got a TRULY UNIQUE product that you control the entire supply and distribution chain of, your retail model is going to be pummeled into oblivion by the Internet.
Even More Bad News Gets Worse: Doctors (http://www.doctorevidence.com/) , Lawyers (http://www.wklaw.com/), and Indian Chiefs (http://www.sevenfeathers.com/) have all developed online business models as the transmogrification of the economy into an e-conomy continues. Even as this happens, there are so many retailers out there not paying attention, it is almost as if they are wearing blinders. So many retail verticals have taken a vicious beating at the hands of the Internet, you would think the survivors would have learned by not to be apathetic.
But they are. The evidence this Christmas season to me is overwhelming proof of…and I can't believe I am actually going to use the quote I first became aware of when it was posted on the wall above the throne of Jim Jones of Guyana infamy; but here goes… "Those who fail to learn the lessons of the past are doomed to repeat them."
I watched a news story where the reporter was interviewing a Sears store manager who was commenting on the less than expected foot traffic. Almost as an after thought, he went on to reassure the reporter his store was doing fine because about 50% of their electronic sales this season are being done over the Internet.
I think one of the main reasons the foot traffic is down is there is nothing special about shopping this season. Retailers are so focused on cutting expenses, not offending anyone with decorations; they have turned Christmas shopping into a very bland experience. The very blandness of the experience is one of the reasons more people are shopping online this season.
I did a very unscientific informal survey of most of my friends and family on shopping this season, and I kept hearing the same things over and over.
"It doesn't feel much like Christmas these days."
But I didn't just take their word for it. Once again at great personal risk, I went to a few large malls, and different malls to see if my past experiences shopping this month still hold true.
In response to the above letter from Virginia, Francis Church wrote a column in the on the spirit of Christmas that has become a perennial classic (http://nanaellen.com/village/cmas/cmas-virginia.htm) this time of year.
If he had received the letter in 2006 instead of 1897, would his answer have been different?
Watching the news last night was a confirmation for me that should have been a wake up call for anyone working in the retail sector. There is a lack of Christmas spirit out there these days, and it is one of the factors driving more traffic out of the malls and onto the Net.
Two of the three business news stories on the national news had a Internet factor to them, and the only business story on the local news was about the drop in foot traffic in stores and the surprising numbers of Internet sales this holiday season.
The Bad News: The Internet is not a passing fad, no matter how much retailers want it to go away.
More Bad News: E-tailers are adapting to retailing faster than retailers are adapting to the Internet.
Even More Bad News: Unless you have got a TRULY UNIQUE product that you control the entire supply and distribution chain of, your retail model is going to be pummeled into oblivion by the Internet.
Even More Bad News Gets Worse: Doctors (http://www.doctorevidence.com/) , Lawyers (http://www.wklaw.com/), and Indian Chiefs (http://www.sevenfeathers.com/) have all developed online business models as the transmogrification of the economy into an e-conomy continues. Even as this happens, there are so many retailers out there not paying attention, it is almost as if they are wearing blinders. So many retail verticals have taken a vicious beating at the hands of the Internet, you would think the survivors would have learned by not to be apathetic.
But they are. The evidence this Christmas season to me is overwhelming proof of…and I can't believe I am actually going to use the quote I first became aware of when it was posted on the wall above the throne of Jim Jones of Guyana infamy; but here goes… "Those who fail to learn the lessons of the past are doomed to repeat them."
I watched a news story where the reporter was interviewing a Sears store manager who was commenting on the less than expected foot traffic. Almost as an after thought, he went on to reassure the reporter his store was doing fine because about 50% of their electronic sales this season are being done over the Internet.
I think one of the main reasons the foot traffic is down is there is nothing special about shopping this season. Retailers are so focused on cutting expenses, not offending anyone with decorations; they have turned Christmas shopping into a very bland experience. The very blandness of the experience is one of the reasons more people are shopping online this season.
I did a very unscientific informal survey of most of my friends and family on shopping this season, and I kept hearing the same things over and over.
"It doesn't feel much like Christmas these days."
But I didn't just take their word for it. Once again at great personal risk, I went to a few large malls, and different malls to see if my past experiences shopping this month still hold true.
Sad to say they do.
There are hardly any distinctly holiday decorations in stores. The few decorations there are in stores these days, are sterile and bland. If there is Holiday music in stores, most stores seem to prefer the Muzak version of Christmas Music - A little to sterile and bland for my tastes.
There as a very distinct lack of holiday apparel worn by the staff in the stores this year. I saw more staff in holiday dress on Halloween than I did in the malls during the last shopping week before Christmas.
In discussing my preliminary findings; a friend of mine in Michigan told me California doesn't count because it is hard to have Christmas spirit when the sun is shining; there's no snow on the ground and people are shopping in shorts and tee shirts. But he grudgingly admitted, he would rather be walking through a parking lot in Los Angeles than one in Detroit this time of year.
I thought to myself, maybe it's an economy thing.
Nope. The news stations and business web sites are reporting that national surveys are indicating consumers will spend about $195 more per family on Christmas this year than they did last year. And the online shopping news confirms this trend.
At the beginning of the shopping season, online sales were forecast to exceed $1 billion dollars. On two days, BLACK FRIDAY (the day after Thanksgiving) and GREEN MONDAY (the last day to guarantee packages will arrive in time) online shoppers spent $772 million dollars. If you take the total sales from the other twenty-two shopping days into consideration, online sales will probably beat the forecast increase of 25% over 2005's online Christmas shopping record.
The majority of the sales went to clicks and bricks stores that did a better job catering to needs of their online traffic, than they did creating a memorable Christmas shopping experience for their walk-in traffic.
And in this atmosphere of Christmas apathy at the retail store level, is planted the seeds of destruction for the Christmas spirit where staff is so afraid of lawsuits they wish customers a "Happy Holiday," if any greeting at all.
How can shopping be meaningful and special when two weeks before Christmas, people are already shopping the early sales for next year's presents and wrap? How can shopping be meaningful and special when one of the top five gifts this season is the Gift Card? No thoughtful consideration required.
How can shopping be meaningful and special when the most frequent Christmas stories on the news this season have been the mall upgrades on parking lot security and shoplifting prevention?
If advertising on TV had a Santa at all, he was marking down prices with a twinkle in his eye; delivering presents while driving a Mercedes, or whining and complaining about the competition he is getting at the mall from a cell phone company.
It's a good thing that Virginia didn't send her famous letter this season, because the answer she would have gotten back would have been a whole lot different.
At the beginning of the shopping season, online sales were forecast to exceed $1 billion dollars. On two days, BLACK FRIDAY (the day after Thanksgiving) and GREEN MONDAY (the last day to guarantee packages will arrive in time) online shoppers spent $772 million dollars. If you take the total sales from the other twenty-two shopping days into consideration, online sales will probably beat the forecast increase of 25% over 2005's online Christmas shopping record.
The majority of the sales went to clicks and bricks stores that did a better job catering to needs of their online traffic, than they did creating a memorable Christmas shopping experience for their walk-in traffic.
And in this atmosphere of Christmas apathy at the retail store level, is planted the seeds of destruction for the Christmas spirit where staff is so afraid of lawsuits they wish customers a "Happy Holiday," if any greeting at all.
How can shopping be meaningful and special when two weeks before Christmas, people are already shopping the early sales for next year's presents and wrap? How can shopping be meaningful and special when one of the top five gifts this season is the Gift Card? No thoughtful consideration required.
How can shopping be meaningful and special when the most frequent Christmas stories on the news this season have been the mall upgrades on parking lot security and shoplifting prevention?
If advertising on TV had a Santa at all, he was marking down prices with a twinkle in his eye; delivering presents while driving a Mercedes, or whining and complaining about the competition he is getting at the mall from a cell phone company.
It's a good thing that Virginia didn't send her famous letter this season, because the answer she would have gotten back would have been a whole lot different.
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