BLOOMSBURG- While some people prefer to wait until it is closer to the holidays, some decorate before Christmas time even comes around. People put up lights, decorations, Christmas trees, and more before Thanksgiving has even begun.
If you turn on the radio, sometimes even beginning in late October, you can find stations already bringing to play the holiday music, from Mariah Carey to John Denver, you can already find your favorite Christmas songs to sing along to.
According to Music Radio Creative, they say that “in the USA it’s generally accepted that the real Christmas countdown begins the day after Thanksgiving and radio stations will begin to playlist Xmas tunes to get listeners into the festive spirit. Some start as early as the day after Halloween!”
They also stated that, “There are radio stations that play Christmas music all year round and others that take full advantage of the time of year to create a Christmas themed radio station.” So, for those people that find themselves in the Christmas spirit all year long, there’s always a station for you.
Today.com reported that, “If you're itching to break out the Christmas lights before you've even carved the Thanksgiving turkey, go ahead — psychologists say it might make you happier. For starters, the bright lights and colors, Serani said. Chromotherapy, or color therapy, which is thought to increase energy levels and boost happiness, might be at play. Or maybe it’s just the ambiance in general — who can resist smiling at the sight of a Christmas tree being lit for the first time? There’s even a new scientific field, devoted to understanding how our designed environments affect behavior, called neuro-architecture. Of course, there's also the nostalgia factor.”
Even with the delight of Christmas coming, there also seems to be competition as well.
With the holidays comes pressure to live up to the highest of societal standards. Everything needs to look picture perfect to grab people’s attention and persuade them to come into your store. The better your display, the better chances of having more customers buying things from you.
The display outside of a store is what attracts customers there in the first place. People like seeing new things and big fixtures. They see the different colors, lights, decorations, and various styles and want to walk into that store.
Depending on the style of the store depends on the display they might put up. One high school student, Jaime Walsh said, “I like the stores that put us all the little cut out snowflakes, like Arie and American Eagle. I wonder who takes the time to cut out all those individual little snowflakes and strings them together for every store. Mine always look like a preschooler made them.”
Different age groups and tastes in styles depends on what different people are attracted to. Brands often have a specific image they base their displays and seasonal storefronts. They typically stick to the same logo, lettering, the style of clothing, colors, and much more.
When figuring out how to decorate the front of your store, you need to look at your brand image. Make sure to stay consistent with what your customers know and love. Your whole marketing campaign is based off of what your customers know and love. They are usually consistent in what they like or want to buy, so as long as you keep your store going with the same concept, you will have loyal customers.
Another thing to keep in mind in the new generation of millennials. They like to shop cheap and get their money’s worth. This generation has become more intentional of their money and watch how they spend it. A Bloomsburg senior, Eli Martinez, stated, “I like to find the best deals on gifts that I can. I do a lot of online shopping and cyber Monday is the best day for it. A lot of store now though have their sales up early which is really convenient for me and I can see the sales in the window before I even walk in the store.”
Many stores post their biggest sales in the front window along with their displays. This lets customers know if they think it’s worth the trip inside the store or if they want to keep looking to find something better. The better the sales, the better chances of getting more customers.
Christmas has become more and more of a commercial holiday. The bigger and better display you have the more attention you will get. Today, people care about how things look. They want to feel like they are important somehow and by putting on a big display to draw their attention, they are more intrigued and feel like they should go into a store to see how special it may be.
Another thing you can do is learn to be creative. Make a Christmas tree out of books or socks, stack up boxes to make them look like an even bigger tree, hang lights all over the store, or a million other ways to get creative.
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