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A project to make businesses more aware of their customer experience, and how to fix it. By Mark Hurst. |
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Previous: NYT pointer to website | Main | Next: Jet-wash instructions
September 15, 2005 12:05 AM
Broken: Halloween candy aisle in mid-August
Eric Lechner points out that this is "culturally broken":
An aisle full of Halloween candy at my local Long's Drugs store in mid-August. Just in case you needed pumpkin or ghost-themed candy in time for Labor Day.
BROKEN...why do they even bother taking them(the decorations) down??? By the way, I took the Christmas lights off my bushes this past summer on July 17 - I only remember the date because I had "house guests" that day. And, yes, I did use "..." because they were uninvited guests (A.K.A. GO HOME already)..hopefully before halloween. I can only hope. But if they are still at my house, I know where they can stop/shop for candy.
Yeah, this is pretty broken. I assume that by the term 'culturally broken' he means that the fact the this is everywhere is part of its brokenness, and i agree with him. Who needs Halloween in March? Christmas in June? Easter in November? Why???? Is there any good reason for this?
Why not just have a "holiday" aisle at big stores like wal-mart, and in that aisle is stuff for any given holiday at all times: i.e. christmas, valentine's day, halloween, easter, all of it, but not so much. That way, they always have the jump on any store that wants to try and "beat the rush" by releasing stuff to their "seasonal" aisle early.
You mean to tell me you haven't picked up your gifts for Christmas '06 yet?
By the way...only 776 days until Halloween 2007! Better get that candy today!
Not so much broken as devious marketing. People will buy the candy in August on the excuse that "it's for the kids at Hallowe'en" -- of course by October it will all be eaten and they'll buy more. Heck, in my household, it would all be eaten by Labour Day ...
I really believe it would be better if the stores just put up (& kept) an aisle for each of the holiday seasons. Then, for instance, a person could buy a Haloween costume in July or a Christmas tree in April, etc. After all, this is America for crying out loud! We should'nt have to wait until August to buy our Halloween candy or costume! What if I wanted to "stock up?" This is definitely broken, but getting better.
You think thats is nuts? I work at Lowes 0694 in Rogers AR, And we've been slaving in a 110-120 degree greenhouse for the last month putting out christmas lights, trees, and decorations!
Oh yeah, I was at Lowe's this past weekend and saw a huge christmas snowglobe above christmas aisles.
What I'm thinking is, they can't possibly make great sales on those aisles for halloween candy just yet. But as they know, every store sells halloween candy.
So if you go now, and subconsciously make that association that they have the best selection, when the time comes for you to buy, you'll make that place your first choice rather than try a place you never saw candy at yet.
So they may sacrifice some sales now by not putting things up there that would go faster, so they can make more money in October that would otherwise go to their competitors.
Halloween stuff goes up same time as Back-to-school. Maybe to give the little tykes something to look forward to instead of dread. Craft stores always put up "Christmas in July" so crafters have a hope of completing projects by December, so that's not broken.
I swear I'm not making this up- a few days ago I saw a few boxes of Easter candy at a local gas station. I couldn't decide if it was REALLY early, or just REALLY left-over. Either way, it was definitely scary and wrong.
They're starting to show up over here too. At least we have a set of holidays during the fall to mark the sales around. Cousin was up from Australia and they mentioned that they don't have the procession of fall holidays we have like Labor Day, Thanksgiving and to a large extant, Halloween.
Some people have holiday decorating and shopping as a hobby. The stores that can afford the floorspace therefore keep the big decorating-holiday stuff out for long periods of time. If floorspace is so cheap that only a few hundred sales is worth it, then why not? Plus, it could seperates the recieving/setup/stocking work (late summer) from the sales/REstocking work (halloween time).
Well, Ms. Piggy, obviously people in Australia don't have our FEDERAL HOLIDAYS!
----
A- That is wrong.
Not broken. This crap wouldn't be out there if the idiots out there didn't buy it. [I originally typed "you idiots," but decided not to be so confrontational...] By the way, "devious marketing" is a little redundant, don't you think E.T.?
This website is terrible, almost all of these things are such a stretch it's rediculous. You can't step into the shoes of these people for one second and go, 'oh well i know why they did that', or maybe, 'well thats kinda silly but its simple human error'. The ad that referred me to this site was of a sign that said, 'Screw Machine Operators'. This is by no means hysterical and serves such an insignificant purpose because anyone with half a brain knows what the sign means.
Now to stay on topic...who exactly does it hurt to have holloween candy in a store a couple months early? How many people are offended by this? How exactly does it compromise your shopping experience? The stores need something to fill their holiday section, and holloween happens to be the next biggest retail opportunity.
Maybe I don't get it, but either this site is aiming for humor or actually trying to reach out to these companies and shove something in their face. I assure you, you fall short on both points.
Killing time at work is trying these days, thankyou.
I won't step into the debate about whether selling crap to people who want to buy it is 'broken' or not... but I do have a comment about the kind of changes I've seen in the crap: it's getting fancier and more expensive (but it's probably still crap) -- witness 10 foot high inflatable monsters, lifesize singing frankenstein monsters, scary moving hand candy bowls and such -- all for something you will use at most a few days a year, even less than xmas stuff.
This site needs to spawn a sister site: "This is wrong." An increasing number of the posts here belong over there.
I still take "broken" to refer to careless or poorly conceived communications or ergonomics: "no animals allowed in park" signs, incomprehensible microwave controls, or badly placed toilet paper dispensers.
Halloween candy in August is morally indefensible, but not confusing or inconvenient. It makes my life no more difficult.
It's wrong, but not broken.
I work at a Longs, and just for your info. the executives decided that
our holiday crap is to be out on the sales floor a month earlier than last year. They claim it is to maxamize sales, they think they are going to have more sales this way. I think Longs "suits" ceo's, exec.,
all of them are broken or trying to break Longs. JMO
I work at a Wal-Mart Supercenter which, of course, already has Halloween items on the seasonal aisles. I agree that it's annoying to see seasonal items months in advance, but at the same time I understand why the stores do it. They sell massive amounts of candy even as early as it is. The people buying it may be buying it to eat instead of for Halloween, but stores are there to make money and are usually going to have out whatever they can sell lots of. Just to give you an idea they're probably selling half a pallet of candy a day and even more on busy days(this is a conservative estimate). And that doesn't even include all the costumes and candy that's normally in stock all year long.
A long time ago I worked in a mall and the stores put on Christmas music November 1st and played it until mid January.
Now that is just sick and wrong!
Nothing ruins the Christmas season for me more than having the commercialization begin 4 months early. Ditto for the other seasons. It's insane. When did holidays become more about buying poorly made cheap crap that you don't even need than about family, friend, and relaxation?
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K-Mart in my area has put up Christmas trees next to Holloween decorations. Time to get ready for Valentine's Day. VERY BROKEN!
Posted by: me at September 15, 2005 12:33 AM