Mounting evidence shows that the holiday shopping season is starting sooner. But is this Christmas creep consumer-driven or the result of retailers planting seeds in the public's mind earlier in the year?
According to a July 2018 survey of US consumers and mobile marketers worldwide by YouAppi, retailers might be a little premature with holiday promotions.
The largest number of marketers (30%) plan to start pushing holiday products via mobile apps in November, the same as in 2017. But more said they were going to start before October: 23% in 2018, compared with 16% last year. And fewer are waiting until December (11% vs. 17%).
However, only 11% of consumers want to see holidays mentioned in mobile apps in October. Most are not ready for holiday ads until after Thanksgiving (38%), though that's down from 46% in 2017.
Mobile marketers also have slightly different takes on the mobile opportunity for this year's holiday season compared with 2017. Fully 60% think it's a great time of year to engage customers, up from 54% who thought so a year earlier. And 28% said it was an opportunity to collect data to use in future campaigns, up from 25% who said the same in 2017.