Retail Christmas Wasn't Boom or Bust

Photo: Reuters / John Gress

According to data from two dozen major companies, retail sales in December were up about 4% over the prior year's results, giving Wall Street the rosy perception that the season was essentially a successful one. As usual, marketers found ways to motivate consumers to shell out a few more bucks than they did last year, a result which typically signifies a healthy holiday season.

What is less talked about than the top line sales results, and far less encouraging, is the hidden "cost" of these added sales. In most cases, December sales gains were driven largely by deep discounts (several mall retailers ran "40% Off Everything" deals in the week before Christmas), as well as gimmicky promotions and extended store hours, all of which take a hefty toll on product margins and operating profitability. We won't understand the complete picture of the 2011 Christmas retail season until we see quarterly profit & loss statements from these companies.

With improved sales but potentially compromised profits, Christmas results are ultimately a mixed bag for retailers. Strong and moderately healthy companies will forge ahead, and a few companies who started the season from a considerably weaker position, and who then sold their souls just to get customers to cross their lease-lines, may not live to see the end of 2012. There is one macro upside though - the increased spending is a good sign that consumer confidence is on the rise, and when you add to that the steady improvements we are seeing in the job market, there is hope for continued slow but steady economic recovery.



Related Stories: December Retail Sales Are Sluggish, Black Friday Results and Holiday Trends

Turn Up the Sound - Christmas Time Is Here

If you missed them on NBC's The Sing Off, Afro Blue is an astounding jazz a capella singing group from Howard University.

Their upbeat rendition of Christmas Time Is Here is so cheerful and lush that I totally forget there are no instruments playing - except for the magical blend of their voices. 

Settle in with your gift wrapping and eggnog and give Afro Blue a listen!

Air Jordans Bring Tidings of Comfort and Joy

Photo: Courtesy of sfgate.com

The spirit of Christmas filled the air in shopping malls this morning as eager throngs of shoppers crowded storefronts around the nation in search of the new Nike Air Jordan Concord 11 sneakers.

The mainstream media used words like "riot" and "frenzy" to describe the chaos of these "Nike-crazed mob scenes," but they are seeing the downside as usual.

Sure, if you insist on looking through the telephoto lens of an expensive professional camera and seeing the facts, there might have been a little mayhem and violence. If you're obsessed with recording your actual first-person observations, I suppose the kids might have seemed a teensy bit rowdy when they tore off the mall front doors. But what if you let a little Christmas cheer inform your perspective. What if you choose to look closer and see this morning's jostling hordes through the translucent prism of grandma's favorite glass Christmas bulb...

• Seattle police were not using approved crowd control methods - they were simply welcoming shoppers with a playful dousing of yuletide pepper spray.
• A San Francisco Bay Area man was not recklessly discharging a firearm in a Richmond mall parking lot; he was joyously marking the arrival of the new shoe with the gift of gunfire.
• Unruly mobs didn't trample innocent bystanders at malls in Michigan. Some dancers are just less skilled than others with the new holiday "Nutcracker Stomp" craze that's sweeping the nation.
• An Atlanta woman didn't abandon two young kids in the car in the mall parking lot while she waited in line for hours to buy sneakers. The (apparently ungrateful) kids were simply being given ample opportunity to compose wish-filled letters to Santa (in their heads).

Maybe these unruly masses of holiday shoppers were simply bounding with joy at the pinnacle of this most wonderful time of year? Better yet, they were most likely anxious to get their newly acquired Air Jordans posted on eBay at a fair price, generously hoping to ease the burdens of sorrowful last minute shoppers. Could be, couldn't it? I just know that's it!

If you're open to the wonders of the season, Christmas joy will fill your heart and comfort your soul. You'll find holiday magic everywhere, and it will be as heart-warming and abundant as peace and goodwill at a New Jersey Wal-Mart on Black Friday morning.

Anonymous Strangers Pay Off Layaways

Kindness and generosity are making a comeback at K-Mart stores around the country, as anonymous donors are paying for kids toys and clothes that customers have put on layaway for Christmas.

This is personal charity - it's about everyday folks, about lending a hand when you can. It's not exactly the stuff of Hallmark holiday movie miracles, but it's a nice reminder in the last week before Christmas that each of us has the power to do something, however small it seems, that can make someone else's life just a little better.

My Favorite Christmas Movie Guilty Pleasure

I don't remember when I first saw Always Remember I Love You, but based on its original release date, it was probably the early 1990s.

If you don't remember the movie, that's okay, most people don't. It wasn't popular enough to sustain a place in the annual Hallmark/Lifetime holiday movie rotation, and even I haven't seen it for so long, that I'm sure I've long since forgotten some of the secondary characters.

What I won't forget about Always Remember I Love You is the way the movie made me feel, and how its bittersweet storyline hung weighty Christmas ornaments on my heart strings and tugged them to the ground.

Always Remember, as I'll call it for the sake of brevity, is not your typical Christmas fare, but it is set during the holiday period and the story does culminate on Christmas day. The film is also tender and sweet, and as gooey as a fresh-baked Cinnabon, so yeah, I guess there's no way of denying it - Always Remember I Love You is a Christmas movie.

The main character in Always Remember is Robert, a sixteen year-old boy played by Stephen Dorff, who learns that his wealthy jet-setter parents actually adopted him. More tragically, Robert's Manhattanite parents, portrayed with perfect TV-movie panache by David Birney and Joan Van Ark, discover that their adopted son was kidnapped from his real family when he was a baby. Upon being assailed with this avalanche of identity-shattering news, Robert does what any of us would do; he runs away to middle America to find his birth parents.

Boycott Stores on Thanksgiving and Christmas

Big box retailers Target, Toys-R-Us, and Best Buy are among the chain stores who will open their doors at midnight or even earlier this year on Thanksgiving night.

I won't be there to greet the holiday shopping season, and for that matter I won't spend a dime in any store anywhere on Thanksgiving day or Christmas day.

Enough is enough.


For salivating shoppers who have created a holiday tradition out of attending "black Friday" door-buster sales, these midnight openings may add a fun and twisted new element to the holiday shopping circus. For tens of thousands of retail employees though, this represents another thoughtless business decision that further separates people from the essence of what makes holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas special - the opportunity to take a single day away from the rat race, to breathe deep and reflect on what really matters, and to spend quality time with people you love.

I understand, better than most, that retailers are scrounging increasingly harder every year to capture their piece of the all-important Christmas pie, and frankly, while the commercialization of Christmas can be a bit annoying from time to time, that's not what bothers me.