Marketing Blitz to Spark Spending Season – Christmas Sale
Brands in consumer goods, electronics and gifting ideas have all felt the pinch of the recession this financial year. While businesses heave a sigh of relief at the first signs of the recession giving way to global recovery, solid economic recovery is no where in sight. There is a lot of inertia to consumer spending, a natural phenomenon given the intense air of uncertainty that has spread gloom across industries. The best way, businesses thought, to get out and get going would be to jump start the festive season bandwagon. And here comes the Santa!
Business houses are getting restive at the way consumer demand has slacked and refused to rise again; so, the ploy was to create an air of celebration and rejoice so that gloom left and cheer arrived – and what better way to do that, than celebrating Christmas! Marketers have loved the window of opportunity provided by the festive season, where Christmas and New Year sales would easily account for over half of the total sales in any year. So, marketers are announcing promotions and special offers, apparently to spread the financial burden that consumers may have during the month of December where normal buying behaviour would be concentrated.
In terms of logistics, maintaining a healthy stock of products on the shelves will be a challenge in itself as consumers flock in and demand for the products in numbers that may virtually be unmanageable, leading to lost opportunities. Spreading the spending season makes sense that way, so that businesses can plan at leisure and ramp up their stocks to meet surging demands.
However, in their enthusiasm to kick start consumer spending, marketers should take care not to come across as being avaricious enough to even push the festive season by a couple of months so that consumers would part with their buying power. If the offers are good and promotions well thought out yielding to consumer sensibilities, businesses could pull the extended promotion period off in style and thank Santa for the gift.
