What makes you overspend before Christmas?

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

The Hard Shoulder, with Ciara Kelly and Shane Colman. On Newstalk, with Ciara.

Shane Colman (0:08)

Damian O'Reilly, Senior Lecturer in Retail Management at TUD, has popped into us. Damian, I suppose for generations of Irish families, Christmas didn't really begin until early December. Maybe December the 8th was the date when shops, schools closed, trains filled up, people headed to Dublin to do their shopping. But that's long gone. Christmas is starting earlier and earlier now.

Damian O'Reilly (0:32)

Yeah, December the 8th was the traditional day when people traditionally came up from the country that it was a holy day of obligation and that Christmas kind of started or kicked off. You know, things have changed certainly over the last 20, 25 years with the advent of online commerce and so on. So and for the retailers, it's known as the golden quarter.

And it's expanded because, you know, about seven or eight years ago, we really took cognizance of the what's happening across in the United States is that Black Friday is a big day over there and it became a big day over here. So it's a sale day over here. So what's happened is Christmas has been extended back to November. And then if you think even we're at the beginning of November here before Black Friday, and what we have is the Amazon Prime kicking in in October. So basically, they've put the days when you might want to buy something for Christmas, they're pushing it back and back further.

Shane Colman (1:24)

So when you say Amazon Prime, what do you mean?

Damian O'Reilly (1:26)

Well, Amazon Prime is a kind of a sale day for Amazon.

Shane Colman (1:29)

OK.

Damian O'Reilly (1:30)

If you're a Prime customer, that you get discounts, substantial discounts, and they had that in October. So they're kind of pushing out the date, you know, because 50% of what people have already 50% of people have already bought for Christmas. So and spent their money already. So this is because they're looking for deals and they're trying to spread it out over several paydays because the cost of living is increasing and they're not expecting that to go down in 2027 So they've been more careful with the money and spreading out.

They don't want any shocks coming up to Christmas saying, I have to buy this, this or this. They've already got them in their budget.

Shane Colman (2:05)

And if once you, when you go into the supermarkets across Ireland over the last couple of weeks, you can already see them stocking up for Christmas.

Damian O'Reilly (2:15)

I was in Harrods in June and they had Christmas thoughts for Christmas in one section of the food food section there in Harrods. So yeah, it's gone back. John Lewis pushed their Christmas decorations and wrapping paper and so on back to October because people are buying those type of things.

Shane Colman (2:33)

You can see all the sweets and stuff and mince pies and things like that in supermarkets as well.

Damian O'Reilly (2:38)

The biggest sales day for Marks and Spencers pies is in November and they're all gone by December because people have actually eaten them. They have to go out and buy more.

Shane Colman (2:49)

So it's a little bit like the chicken and the egg. Which comes first? I mean, are retailers meeting what people want? Or is it a case of retailers are pushing this and the public is reacting?

Damian O'Reilly (3:02)

Well, we take that from the retailer's perspective, first of all, is that it extends the shopping period. So from it just being straight up to Christmas in the last three or four weeks, it's now extended into six, eight, ten weeks before Christmas.

They've got also the second part of that is they've got early mover advantage, is that they get in there first, they get your loyalty, you come back and shop in the store again and again. The main thing though is stock control. Is basically you can imagine all the extra products that's bought at Christmas, be it grocery products or be it presents that you're getting in fashion outlets or whatever, is that those products are coming in in October, November, December. They need to sell these and the more they can streamline this, the less waste they have. That's a huge element these days, is that the less waste they have and that they're not left with a lot of stock in January, you have to sell off because that becomes a very difficult period when they have to do that.

Shane Colman (3:55)

Yet there's something ludicrous about it all, isn't there?

Damian O'Reilly (3:58)

Well, there is, but it's managing it better. Rather than it just being confined to two or three weeks now at Christmas, Christmas for purchasing for products for presents and so on has extended into, what customers want to do is they want to beat the crowds. So they want to get in there and a lot more people are more focused and they go with lists and they want to reduce the uncertainty that they have to give them peace of mind.