Oct 28, 2007

Customers not deterred by Christmas CreepBy Gail ApplesonSTLToday.com

Lisa McGinty said it still felt like summer when she went shopping at Westfield’s West County Center, a mall in Des Peres, about two weeks ago. So she was unprepared for what she saw: Christmas trees.

“It seems too early when it’s 80 degrees in St. Louis. It’s definitely not where your head is,” said McGinty, of Kirkwood. “It just keeps getting earlier every year.”

That is a common complaint among shoppers. And, like McGinty, many find decorations for the year-end holidays annoying in September and October. They believe that retailers are trying to push them into buying before they’re ready.

In fact, it’s such a well-recognized phenomenon that the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia coined a name for it — “Christmas Creep.”

However, while consumers say they’re bothered by the early display of decorations, they don’t raise much of a stink or boycott stores. Instead, said marketing experts, those displays of Christmas trees and shiny ornaments have the potential of extending the holiday selling season that’s so crucial to many retailers.

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