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Holiday creep starts even earlier this year, with shorter selling window for retailers
Get ready for holiday merchandise to hit store shelves earlier than usual this year, and for retailers to roll out seasonal promotions well before temperatures drop. Discounted pricing once reserved for Black Friday and Cyber Monday is now going into effect in early October.
“Holiday creep,” the term for when retailers start selling holiday-themed items before the traditional start of the season, is a phenomenon that’s been at play for years, as retailers try to get a jump-start on sales.
This year, given that the window between Thanksgiving and Christmas is almost one week shorter compared with last, stores will have even less time to clear merchandise from shelves and capture consumers’ dollars. To make up for that time, they’re hosting holiday sales events as early as the beginning of October, before the leaves have even started to fall in many places.
For example, Wayfair hosted is hosting its seasonal sales event, Way Day, on October 5 through October 9. Target Circle Week runs from October 6 through October 12, and Amazon Prime Big Deals Day will be held on October 8 and 9.
Walmart this year released its “Top Toys List” on September 9-15, to start tempting customers weeks before Santa’s arrival. “‘Tis the season for toys!” read a press release announcing the list.
“It’s been an ongoing retail movement over the last few years of bringing sales forward, it’s ‘holiday creep,’ or ‘Black October’ — whatever you want to call it,” said Adam Davis, managing director of Wells Fargo retail finance, told CBS MoneyWatch. “Retailers are trying to maximize sales by elongating the season to get as much share of wallet as possible.”Getting ahead of the Black Friday crowd
Another reason for holiday creep? Limited consumer spending dollars. Most shoppers have fixed budgets, or set dollar amounts they’re willing to spend on holiday merchandise and gifts. So, retailers compete with one another for consumers’ precious dollars. If they’ve blown through their budgets before Thanksgiving arrives, stores that wait until Black Friday to reveal deals will have missed an opportunity to lure them in.
“There’s a finite budget, for the most part, of what consumers are willing to spend. And retailers want to capture their dollars earlier in the season, so they don’t get caught up in the clutter of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, being one of many companies promoting deals and getting lost in the mix,” Davis said.
In other words, consumers don’t have to wait until Black Friday to look for sales on winter coats, toys and appliances.
“A lot of direct-to-consumer companies are following the lead of Amazon, which has its big Prime Day coming up. They are following suit because they don’t want to lose out on extra traffic from consumers,” Davis added.
This year, aggressive promotions start now
Still, early price cuts aren’t usually as deep as those introduced around Black Friday and Cyber Monday, by which time retailers panic if they haven’t sold a substantial amount of their inventory. If consumers take their chances and wait until after Christmas to start shopping, they could secure even better deals, but there’s no guarantee that product will be available.
“Retailers like to grab customers now, in early October and November, because they can sell product at higher margins than after Thanksgiving, when they’re in panic mode because sales aren’t there and they need to rapidly discount things,” Davis explained.
Retail expert Mark A. Cohen, former director of retail studies at Columbia Business School, said that while promotional creep is as intrinsic to the holiday season as Christmas jingles, “it does get a little bit more pronounced when the calendar shifts to compress the Thanksgiving to Christmas season.”
“The march to a successful outcome is underway. And whereas traditionally, retailers would keep their promotional behavior under wraps and protect their gross margins, I think now they are more insecure than they have ever been and don’t want to have any excess inventory coming out of holiday season,” he said. “So they are promoting aggressively now.”
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Mark Harmon, widely known for playing Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs on the hit CBS drama “NCIS,” is stepping behind the camera as the executive producer and narrator of a new spin-off prequel, “NCIS: Origins.”
After nearly two decades in the role, Harmon is now helping bring to life the early years of Gibbs, with actor Austin Stowell portraying a young version of the iconic character.
“You come in and audition here for years and years, and all of a sudden, you’re presented with a badge with your name on it,” Stowell said about now working on the Paramount lot.
The show’s set features scenes at Camp Pendleton, including locations like Daley’s Tavern, a bar just off-base. For Stowell, it is a role of a lifetime.
“I felt very confident in what I could bring to the character, and then the second you walk in the room, that all goes out the window,” Stowell said.
Casting the role of young Gibbs in “NCIS: Origins” was a significant decision for the team, as it meant finding someone to take on the character that Harmon made iconic. The prequel, set in 1991, explores Gibbs’ early days as a rookie agent.
Harmon saw the project as an opportunity to dive deeper into the character’s backstory, introducing a Giibbs that has never been seen before in the original series.
“This is a chance to really kind of dig into it,” said Harmon
The role also brings a more personal and emotional storyline for Gibbs, one that explores his grief after the loss of his wife and child.
“He’s in rough shape,” Harmon said.
Stowell has drawn on his personal experiences to portray Gibbs’ pain. His father died by suicide four years ago.
“Loss is something we all deal with and for Gibbs, this is something that has cracked him to his core, said Stowell.
Harmon has been a steady presence on set, offering guidance to Stowell and the rest of the cast.
“From day one, Mark has been available,” Stowell said. “He’s so good at allowing the people who are on this show to feel like they are supported.”
Harmon made it clear that this new chapter of “NCIS” belongs to the younger cast.
“I’m there to help and to talk to them or to tell them what I remember from being in this for a while. But this is their thing,” Harmon said.
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After a four-year period in which interest rates hit record lows and then rose to decades-highs, the Federal Reserve started cutting interest rates again in September. A half a percentage point cut, sparked by cooling inflation numbers, was issued on September 18. And with unemployment and inflation declining in September, too, additional cuts of 25 basis points each look likely for the next two Fed meetings in November and December.
While this is welcome news for borrowers, it will detract from the big returns savers have been accustomed to in recent years. This is particularly true for those who have opened or are considering opening a certificate of deposit (CD). That said, CD interest rates haven’t declined so dramatically as to render these unique savings vehicles unworthy. Savers can still earn hundreds and potentially thousands of dollars with the right CD account – even now.
But there are some smart CD moves savers should make now, before the next rate cut, to earn that big return. Below, we’ll break down three of them.
Start by seeing how much more you could be earning on your money with a top CD here.
3 smart CD moves to make before the next rate cut
While CDs are still a safe and predictable way to earn a substantial return on your money, this high rate cycle could soon be coming to a close. Savers who have yet to take advantage, then, or those considering another account, should make the following moves now — before the Fed takes additional action:
Determine your budget
The more you deposit into a CD the more you’ll earn. That simple calculation, however, doesn’t account for any early withdrawal penalties you’ll need to pay if you withdraw your money prematurely. These penalties range from lender to lender but they can easily negate any earnings you’ve accumulated to that point. So, first, determine your budget. Figure out precisely how much you can afford to deposit and for how long you can lock it away. Once you have this amount and length of time (CD term), determined, you’ll be ready to take next steps.
Get started with a CD online now.
Shop around for lenders
Don’t just head to your local bank branch to open a CD. Often, the best CD rates and terms are found with online banks versus those with physical locations. But even all online lenders are not the same as some will require higher minimum deposits or other requirements to earn a high rate. So shop around for lenders to find one offering the best rates for the amount of money you’re comfortable depositing. And be sure to understand the early withdrawal penalties and any other fees or maintenance costs that could affect your returns before getting started.
Open a long-term CD
A long-term CD will mature anywhere between 18 months and 10 years. Once you’ve determined how much money you can comfortably afford to deposit, consider one of these accounts instead of a short-term one now. Currently, short-term CDs have slightly higher rates than long-term ones do. But those accounts will mature in just a few months, at which point rates will likely be lower. But long-term CDs have competitive rates now (in the 4% to 5% range), allowing savers to earn big returns for years to come, even if the larger rate climate cools during that time frame. And because of the locked rate nature of these accounts, you’ll be able to determine with precision your exact earnings upon account maturity.
The bottom line
Rate-cutting action on behalf of the Federal Reserve should spur savers who haven’t take advantage of the current high rate climate (or those who want to continue to) to make a move now – and they should do so with a CD. Specifically, savers should determine their budget in order to deposit as much as they can comfortably afford. But they should also shop for lenders to find one offering the highest rates, specifically for long-term CDs, which can help savers weather what appears to be a cooling rate climate.
Have more questions? Learn more about your current CD options here.