The holiday shopping season has begun, and every retail business is gearing up for a busy fourth quarter. However, looking back to the last holiday season, we learned quite a bit about the increasing challenges that businesses of all sizes face in the changing commerce climate. More people are turning to the convenience and selection of e-commerce, which is causing even major, historic brands to downsize and reevaluate their operations. Other brands are still reeling from numerous hacking and data breaches, which reduces consumer confidence and costs our economy dearly.
Category: holidays
Singles Day and Holiday Readiness (updated)
Last year, as we turned the corner on Halloween, we noted the growing popularity of “Singles Day,” that online shopping extravaganza that has become a bellwether for economic trends heading into end-of-year holidays.
By way of background, CNBC recounts that “Singles’ Day was first celebrated in the 1990s by young, single Chinese as an anti-Valentine’s Day.” (Consider the array of “ones” on 11/11, by way of symbolism).
Now That Future’s Passed: A Look Back at 2017 (updated)
“It’s going to get worse before it gets better,” we wrote as 2016 became 2017, citing a Guardian article that had proclaimed our previous year as “The Year of the Hack,” and what it meant for the year ahead, and the years after that — like, for instance, that former “future” we’re living in now.
September of Our Year: EMVs Delayed, Storms Felt (updated)
In last fall’s Labor Day survey, we wrote that the unspoken rule was to put white clothing away until Memorial Day rolled around again, but that would seem to apply mostly to cool-weather climates, of which there are fewer and fewer, at least in the American west, where AVPS is headquartered.
Travel Tips & Tricks for Summer Card Carriers
Summer travel always brings with it a shifting list of do’s and don’ts, in terms of what to pack, where to go, what to expect if you’re queueing up for a TSA line, etc. It’s also been a good way to mark how people are feeling about the economy around them: Do they see themselves as having the extra income and time for a trip?
Record “Green” Predicted for St. Paddy’s; Eyeing Payments on Other Side of Rainbow
As the above-linked summary states, “spending for St. Patrick’s Day is expected to reach $5.3 billion, an all-time high in the survey’s 13-year history. The total is up dramatically from last year’s $4.4 billion and tops the previous record of $4.8 billion set in 2014.”
The Christmas Economy’s Home Stretch — and One More Big Hack
Normally we like the holiday weeks to have more “genteel” posts, with a little holiday history, and some prognostications for the current economy and the new year.
Well, okay, sometimes those prognostications aren’t necessarily “genteel,” given that the future can be a murky place, but all in all, we like to infuse some sense of “seasonal lights” into our updates.
Post-Monday Postmortem: More Now Shopping Online
And… we’re back! Still in mid-holiday season, and yet perched between Thanksgiving and that last round of Christmas/Hanukkah/New Year celebrating.
We hope your Thanksgiving was nourishing on many levels. As for what we cover here, it seems to have been productive for businesses, too. According to CBS, “early indications are that this should be a good shopping season, with nearly 154 million people on the prowl for holiday deals during the Thanksgiving weekend, up 2 percent from last year, a National Retail Federation survey indicated
Giving Thanks, Eating Pie, Logging On: Thanksgiving 2016
Historians, according to a round-up of Thanksgiving facts from the U.S. Census Bureau, recorded other “ceremonies of thanks” given by various groups of European settlers in North America — not just pilgrims. Indeed, most of these were probably Biblically-derived, and “included the British colonists in Virginia as early as 1619.”
Post-Election, Will Shoppers Be Ready to Kick Off Holiday Buying?
We write this on our propitious Election Day 2016. And while this isn’t a political blog, as such, it’s no secret that happens in the worlds of government and politics has a direct effect on economies — and thus, on your customers and what they buy.
