With the US economy booming, and consumers and investors alike looking at an increase in lending rates by the Federal Reserve after strong data. This year’s Christmas season is expected to be a roaring success. The economics of Christmas is significant, because Christmas is typically a peak selling season in the year for retailers in many nations around the world.
Sales increase dramatically as people purchase gifts, decorations, and supplies to celebrate the the holidays. For the United States, the Christmas shopping season starts as early as October. As for Canada, merchants begin advertising campaigns just before Halloween, and step up their marketing following Remembrance Day on November 11. In the UK and Ireland, the Christmas shopping season starts from mid-November, around the time when high street Christmas lights are turned on.
It has been calculated for the United states that a quarter of all personal spending takes place during the Christmas/holiday shopping season. Figures from the U.S. Census Bureau reveal that expenditure in department stores nationwide rose from $80 billion in November 2016 to $91.9 billion in December 2018.
Other sectors are concerned with the pre-Christmas increase in spending was even greater and bigger, there being a November–December buying surge of 100 percent in bookstores and 170 percent in jewelry stores.
In the same year employment in American retail stores rose from 1.6 million to 1.8 million in the two months leading up to Christmas.
Industries completely dependent on Christmas including Christmas cards, of which 1.9 billion are sent in the United States each year, and live Christmas Trees, of which 30.8 million were cut in the U.S. in 2016. In the UK in 2016, up to £12 billion was expected to be spent online at Christmas, approximately a quarter of total retail festive sales. With the popularity of Black Friday, this is the unofficial kick off date for Christmas shoppers.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday is notorious for super-hot deals in the shops and online, and the chaos that can ensue in the battle for the best ones. The day has become as synonymous for the crazy scenes in places like Wal-Mart and K-mart with people coming to blows over flat screen televisions, as it has for the actual offers.
The day is traditionally the Friday after Thanksgiving in America, which falls on the fourth Thursday in November. That means it was on November 28 this year. Americans have a public holiday on the Friday, so retailers put on a range of deals to entice them to splash out.
