糖心Vlog

Consumers hardly had time to stash their Halloween costumes before holiday d茅cor appeared in stores this year, and professors in 糖心Vlog鈥檚 College of Business Administration said holiday sales started even sooner. Marketing professor Nick De Bonis, Ph.D., said retailers felt pressure to generate profits during the 2010 holiday shopping season to offset lagging revenue from the first half of the year, which led to earlier, more intense marketing pressure targeted at consumers. 鈥淐hristmas promotions began as early as September to provide shoppers an opportunity to spread their spending over a longer period,鈥� said De Bonis, a former global marketing consultant. 鈥淭he strategy was to make holiday spending seem less traumatic than doing all the buying in the four weeks from Black Friday to Christmas Eve.鈥� Black Friday 鈥� the day after Thanksgiving 鈥� is considered the heaviest shopping day of the year causing retailers鈥� finances to move from the red to the black. But Black Friday isn鈥檛 confined to just Friday this year, according to the College of Business Administration (COBA) educator, who cited early Black Friday sales by retailers like Best Buy, Lenovo, Macy鈥檚 and Sears. Other companies are pre-selling products at Black Friday prices to be picked up on the actual day. Additionally, there are at least six Black Friday deal websites on the Internet offering directions to the best deals and even 鈥渓eaking鈥� Black Friday promotions for some stores. Of course, this aggressive approach does come with caveats on both sides. The low prices may seem great for consumers, but naysayers criticize retailers for once again placing focus on their profit margins instead of the 鈥渞eason for the season.鈥� De Bonis also warns consumers to pay close attention to spending and not get caught up in the excitement of early deals. 鈥淭he danger for aggressive marketers is reviving the criticism that the mercenary drive for profit has replaced the 鈥楥hristmas in X-mas鈥� with the 鈥楥ommercial in Christmas,鈥欌�� De Bonis said. 鈥淔or recession-fatigued consumers, the danger is the pull between the practical need to spend less and the seduction of the deal.鈥� But are profit margins for retailers solely to blame for the metamorphosis of Black Friday into its own season? 鈥淭here鈥檚 always an element of the chicken-egg discussion when it comes to holiday marketing and consumption,鈥� stated De Bonis. 鈥淲hen the bills for holiday spending start coming in at the beginning of the year, businesses and their marketing campaigns are easy scapegoats, but the counter argument is that marketers couldn鈥檛 sell if the demand wasn鈥檛 there.鈥� The reality is that the seller-buyer dynamic is co-dependency.