Kohl’s And The Last Big Holiday Push

Brick-and-mortar retailers should really start celebrating the last two days before Christmas shopping as the most important shopping holiday of the year. Sure, we already have Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Green Monday and Super Saturday as the “big” shopping days in the annual 30-day celebration of commerce, but we really think there should be a new one.

This should be celebrated each year on Dec. 23, before the official Festivus activities get under way, and should officially be called “Out of Time Day” because for consumers who don’t want to pay extra for overnight delivery, the clock has officially struck 12 on shopping online. The arrive-by-Christmas deadline has been counting down since Monday (Dec. 19) — and as of tomorrow (Dec. 22), even Amazon Prime members will have to make a choice: Pay for shipping — or go to a store.

And stores are catching on to the fact that in the final 100 or so hours before Christmas, they have something of a captive audience — and are ready to capitalize on it.

Even if it means staying open for a very, very long time, as in, for over 100 hours.

But for the team at Kohl’s, this is something like par for the course.

On Tuesday, Kohl’s announced it would stay open nonstop in the final run-up to Christmas Eve starting at 7 a.m. on Tuesday, December 20, and running until 6 p.m. on Dec. 24. For those keeping score at home, that comes to 107 total hours.  

Kohl’s, it should be noted, is something of an old hand at the long run up to the big day. Last year the store was open for 170 consecutive hours leading up to Christmas Eve, whereas in 2014 the retailer did a more conservative 104-hour run-up.

The question is, why? Does it really make that big a difference to be available for gift buying at 4 a.m.?

Well …

Fending Off The Herd 

Part of the issue is at play is retail’s holiday equivalent of keeping up with the Joneses. Holiday 2016 has been called “the most promotional” holiday season since the recession reared its ugly head in 2007-2008, with “promotional” being something of a euphemism for “discounted.” Drawing customers to lower prices — which is something of Kohl’s stock and trade during the regular year — is more difficult when it seems like literally every other retailer is singing from the same hymn during the Christmas season.

And all that discounting is already having an impact on retail’s holiday bottom line. Consumers spent more during the Black Friday shopping weekend this year — but only because more of them shopped this year than last year. Per capita, consumers spent less, a fact most analysts explained by the simple fact that discounting depressed basket size.

So if the goods cost less, one strategy (particularly as the online shipping option have dropped out of existence) is to try to catch more of those out-and-about consumers.

“Kohl’s has wowed customers all season long with the most amazing products at an exceptional value, and we are opening our doors around-the-clock leading up to Christmas to give customers even more time to get their last-minute gifts,” said Michelle Gass, Kohl’s chief merchandise and customer officer.

But Will It Work?

Despite what the movie Field of Dream teaches us, building it does not guarantee that they will come.  And last year’s festival of lengthy commerce does not seem to have paid off to Kohl’s quite as intended. Comparable sales rose only .4 percent and margins fell. Kohl’s itself pronounced those results “disappointing.” That disappointment followed the retailer through the  the first half of 2016, as sales fell 2.8 percent.

But Kohl’s 2016 is a bit different from Kohl’s 2015 – Kohl’s now has Kohl’s pay, the Yes2You rewards programs, the Apple Watch on sale and a very aggressive marketing campaign. They’ve also greatly leveled up their buy-online-pick-up-in-store program. Gass noted in an interview that the push has showed strength, and the slightly scaled-back big four-day shopping push will put a nice bow on a very pleasant Christmas season.

But of course, a lot of retailers have gotten aggressive this holiday season – and Walmart, in some places, is always open 24 hours.

So who will win this holiday season, other than Amazon? Hard to call now – but with the next 48 or so hours being brick-and-mortars’ to fight for, it could get interesting out there, and soon.