The business of Christmas
“THE business of Christmas”, said a senior retailer to me a few years ago, “is to get it over with so we can start the Sales”.
At the time I thought it a little crude, if highly commercial. Retailers are in business to make money and that involves a lot of fanfare and razzmatazz. The lights, the noise, the spirit of year-end break, a few days’ holiday, kids home from school and a bit of indulgence all round is probably well deserved by those trying to make a living in tough times.
A good deal of the underlying spirit of Christmas remains, too. Giving to the poor, celebrating it-doesn’t-matter-too-much-what, a chance to sing some beautiful carols and songs, above all, good food and drink with family and friends. Not everyone celebrates Christmas but most societies take a break around the end of the calendar year. The old may see it as nostalgia but the young see it as a licence to enjoy.
To make money?
Like all trade, the business of Christmas is to make money, isn’t it? Wrong. Like all trade, the business of Christmas is to satisfy customers – and as a result to make money. And the business of satisfying customers has changed gradually over the years and will do so even more fundamentally in the next decade.
What has caused – and will cause – those changes? The biggest single factor is the shift from Mass Media to Personalised Communication.
There is still plenty of mass media and mass media advertising about, of course. Technology, especially the mobile phone, has created 24/7 one-on-one connections, allowing people to project their individuality and to demand their specific needs and wishes.
BT in your inbox
Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox.
Added to which the trauma of Covid has made people realise that what they want is both acceptable and, at least potentially, possible. Where once craving happiness would have been considered selfish and soft, the pandemic gave us all a chance to say “there’s nothing wrong with wanting to enjoy life”.
A cry for survival
Slowly – perhaps too slowly – we are becoming aware of overcrowding of the planet and of the damage it, and rapacious exploitation, has done to our world. Increasingly the consumer is being made aware of the individual’s contribution to correcting this dangerous situation.
Where “change” was a cry for fairness, “continuity” has become a cry for survival.
At the same time our politicians have been disappointing. The pandemic offered a chance of true leadership – that is, purpose and direction when the road ahead is obscured by fog. With a few exceptions, the opportunity was missed, leading to panic and abdication. Extremism and lunacy took over for a time. It was manifest in the launch of a planet-debilitating war and a supply chain of which too much had been expected and too little protected.
Quick on the Draw must be moderated by Deep in the Knowledge. It may be calming down now but the risk of a repeat with nuclear tools to exacerbate the danger is still a very real possibility.
In addition to making the consumer gradually more aware of his and her responsibility for the next few decades, business has inexorably – perhaps inevitably – found itself the purse keeper of most of the funds.
Once more than two-thirds of a government’s national budget is devoted to healthcare there isn’t a lot to spread around other equally essential matters. Consumers are fed up with seeing their votes dissipated in ever-increasing control and always-decreasing freedom.
Unlike the political vote which, in democratic societies, comes round only every few years, the consumer vote comes round every time s/he spends money. Increasingly that spend must reflect their wishes beyond product or service performance.
Every purchase is a statement of who you are. To show concern for fellow humans, for animals, for the planet and for succeeding generations can be achieved by an individual, but only up to a point.
Shoppers are big groups of individuals, armies in their own right, capable of storming any Capitol without a cross word or a misplaced shot. Do not fear the riot for it can be quelled. Fear the silent move away from your product. You will never again recapture the loyalty you lose that way.
There are still businesspeople who will tell you that their job is only to maximise shareholder value. It’s like saying that the only purpose of the boxer is to kill his or her opponent. It used to be. Now we have constructed an acceptable sport of boxing – even if some of us think it is rather too brutal to qualify as a game.
Business must go through the same transformation as the investor becomes more socially conscious. The battle for success in retailing is one for the heart and mind of the consumer. “There is more to price than money.”
Changing consumer preferences
To follow consumers’ tastes and fancies has been enough for most retailers in the past. Moods then changed relatively slowly, the leaders in fashion set the tone and the rest followed. No retailer can afford to be only a follower any more. Every Facebook entry, each LinkedIn contribution aims to set a new normal, for others to aspire to, a new marker for what’s “in”.
Any purchase is now a statement beyond the needs of the buyer. Even quite banal products have a message of belonging – hence the attention to naming and framing all aspects of their being. Big retail names like Marks & Spencer, Burberry, Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus are fighting the battle to survive changing consumer preferences – and not always winning.
Retailers and mail order are the front line of the Christmas season shopping business, but manufacturers and service suppliers must also address the question of what today makes for responsible supply in the eyes of the consumer. DHL demonstrated this with an ad for their electric haulage lorries made to show buyers that they are playing their part in urgent planet rescue.
Every supplier and retailer is looking daily at prices in this time of inflation. The balancing act between keeping customers and remaining profitable makes that inevitable. Customers are making the same choices. The room for manoeuvre for each group is limited. However, each purchase and every sale represents a vote for survival, a chance to make the world a better place and a hope that 2023 will see the world start to turn the corner towards stability and peace.
It’s what Christmas is all about. May you have a Happy Christmas.
The writer is founder and chair at Terrific Mentors International
Copyright SPH Media. All rights reserved.
