Customers are tired of Christmas creeping up on them.
As The Washington Post reported, Target customers hope to avoid the “Christmas creep” — a time in which companies promote Christmas ahead of other holidays, like Thanksgiving — this year.
In response, the retailer said it has listened and plans to celebrate Thanksgiving ahead of Christmas.
“They want us to pause, and be really intentional and recognize Thanksgiving,” Rick Gomez, Target’s chief marketing officer, told The Washington Post. “What they don’t want us to do is go right into Christmas. So, we are going to respect that.”
Target said that it will keep signs and displays for Turkey Day up, hoping that “marketing will play up Thanksgiving meal preparation and entertaining for shoppers,” according to The Washington Post.
And Target plans to keep the holiday season by offering “meaningful promotions,” Target chief merchandising officer Mark Tritton told The Star Tribune.
One of those promotions includes Chip and Joanna Gaines’ new line of holiday-themed decor. The founders of the hit HGTV show “Fixer Upper” will be selling a new “Hearth & Hand” collection this holiday season, according to CNBC.
The holiday decor collection, which includes wreaths, ornaments and stockings, launches on Nov. 5.
Target hopes the new collection will boost the company’s troubling sales numbers.
“The initial response has been exponential,” Tritton told CNBC.
The National Retail Federation expects all holiday sales to increase between 3.6 and 4 percent, reaching a total spending of $682 billion, according to The Telegraph.
To capitalize on those high numbers, analysts say that Target should continue to highlight big promotions, even though customers might not want them too early, The Star Tribune reported.
Leon Nicholas with Kantar Retail told the Star Tribune that companies with bigger promotions during the holidays tend to have better sales numbers. But businesses that downplay their holiday sales suffer in the early winter months, he said.
“The risk around the holiday season is that employing this strategy too stridently leaves some folks to feel there’s not as much excitement there,” he said.
