I haven’t read this anywhere, so perhaps I’m among the first to say it, but the effectiveness of the traditional seasonal sales is officially over or dying quickly. What I’m talking about are time-of-year sales like Black Friday, President’s Day Sale, Back-to-School, even Christmas Sales. They are no longer significantly meaningful to consumers. We now expect things to always be “on sale” (i.e., discounted)…somewhere. You see something you want, and you just know that you can get it cheaper by searching the Internet. C’mon, were the Black Friday sales limited to just the Friday after Thanksgiving??? No way. I continue to see “Black Friday” sales even now in the middle of summer. Hell, I’ve seen “Black Monday” sales!
Now, I’m not saying that they won’t continue to happen, because retailers love to name their sales events to give them meaning. I’m just saying that they are becoming ineffective as a marketing technique. It probably has a lot to do with the equalizing of the marketing playing field due to the Internet. I like it.
It’s similar to what has happened with TV shows. It used to be that ALL shows started in exactly the same week in the Fall. That is still somewhat true, but TV shows now start all the time. January. Summer. Whenever. Someone finally figured out–I think Fox started it–that launching a show when other networks were showing reruns or whatever was a good time since you didn’t have to compete with other new show announcements. Retailers have figured out the same thing. (