Holiday Cheering From The Sales Floor

Spreading Cheer From the Sales Floor During the Holidays

As the Christmas holiday rapidly approaches, the atmosphere seems to be charged with anticipation. The prevailing mood differs slightly from that of last year.

At around this same time last year, the vibe was quite different and not a happy one. Several enterprises were scaling down from the COVID boom that occurred in 2021, and discovering they had lots of stock challenges and other supply chain problems to remedy. Providers had their requests cancelled, and the aftermath of the COVID closure was still causing major headaches for the retail sector.

The feeling this year has been unique. Even though there have been many peaks and valleys before the holiday season, such as an unexpected October, shoppers were very active during the significant sales following Thanksgiving.

Thanks to the way the holidays fall and the way retail accounting works, the industry can take advantage of more days to sell goods between Thanksgiving and Christmas. This is one of the longest periods between holidays that we've had since before the COVID pandemic. People used to say that one day in December is worth as much as a whole month in January for sales, so having more December days available is a big advantage.

I was at a London shop when I heard one of the sales assistants tell their boss, "It's insane, everything is almost gone. We're selling out of everything."

The ultimate outcome hasn't been calculated yet, but the atmosphere amongst sellers is very joyful. The majority of the information also indicates that it's been a promising year. We'll discover the certainty when we observe the returns and replacements in January and the last count of merchandise inventory.

It's hard to deny that at first, people had a pretty pessimistic view of what 2023 would bring. But looking back, many might think, "Hey, it wasn't so bad after all." Here's to hoping that 2024 is even more fantastic and thrilling!