Jun 26, 2009

Holiday shopping will be early this year, Christmas tree e-retailer saysBy InternetRetailer.com

For Thomas Harman, whose BalsamHill.com retail site depends entirely on Christmas, the holiday shopping season is basically over by Dec. 10. And the shopping season for every retailer will be earlier this year than last year, he advises.

“Retailers will find this year that the Christmas shopping season will come a bit earlier,” says, attributing a later than usual season last year to public fixation on the 2008 presidential election. “Last year the presidential campaigns kept Christmas out of the news until after the election,” Harman says.

“The average shopper last year wasn’t thinking about shopping as much as usual until late in November. So one trend to get ready for this year is that holiday shopping could happen sooner.”

For BalsamHill.com, which Harman launched in 2006, that means working out earlier peak load times with Volusion, its e-commerce platform provider—a strategy Harman suggests all online merchants follow to ensure uninterrupted shopping experiences for customers.

BalsamHill specializes in selling its own brand of pre-lighted, artificial Christmas trees ranging in price from $19 for a sample kit to about $8,000 for large trees placed in commercial centers. With more than $5 million in annual sales, the retailer has experienced rapid growth since its launch except for a relatively slow 2008, Harman says.

The unusual product line—Harman notes that only a trained botanist can tell his trees aren’t real from a distance of ten feet—can lead to sudden spikes in traffic to its web site.

Although BalsamHill sells year-round, most shopping for his trees is done from early November through Dec. 10, and the retailer has received occasional holiday season requests to appear on NBC-TV’s “Today Show” and other television programs, resulting in traffic surges.

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