A holiday ritual of sorts

NEW YORK -- It was a soft cashmere sweater at Ann Taylor that caught my eye. At 25 percent off, I was tempted.

But I knew better.

Buy anything now? No way! The prices can only drop as Christmas nears.

So goes it in the mind of today's holiday shoppers. I speak for the many who are hooked on discounts and are willing to hold off on most of their shopping until the real deals kick in.

Sorry, retailers. You taught us to be this way.

And only you can break us of this habit.

My e-mail was crammed in recent weeks with offers from store owners trying to get me in the door early. Brooks Brothers, Kenneth Cole and the list went on.

If you shopped before Thanksgiving, they were offering around 20 percent off.

It would have sounded good, maybe in the middle of July.

But this is the holiday season, and lots more price-cutting is still to come.

That's because it's the same thing every year, a holiday ritual of sorts.

It starts well before Thanksgiving, with merchants filling their stores with holiday decorations and playing Christmas music.

Get shoppers in the mood and maybe they will buy.

Few usually do.

That makes retailers slightly nervous about how the season will go. They start offering some small discounts in an attempt to jump-start sales.

The pressure only intensifies heading into Thanksgiving weekend, which the industry bills as the official start of the holiday season.

Stores go gangbusters to lure consumers. They open early and close late. Extra discounts and giveaways come to those who shop before dawn, or between certain hours.

Early Friday morning, big crowds always come out for the cheap televisions and hot toys. The mall parking lots are packed.

But the momentum cools fast, and by Saturday afternoon the shoppers are mostly gone. They head home to watch football and eat Thanksgiving leftovers.

They aren't seen again for weeks.

In fact, from Thanksgiving through about Dec. 10 historically accounts for less than 20 percent of total holiday sales, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers.

Still, retailers start in with their usual excuses why sales are slow.

It's the economy.

It's the weather.

It's fewer holiday shopping days this year.

They seem to gloss over the real thing holding down sales: all those discounts that we shoppers see coming.

And almost like clockwork they begin, 10 days or so before Christmas. Signs go up offering 50 percent off. Sale racks appear everywhere.

Suddenly, the elusive consumer walks in, finally ready to buy. And sales keep going strong through New Year's Day.

More than 60 percent of sales are tallied from mid-December through the end of the year, half in the days right before Christmas, ICSC said.

It's true that this waiting game has its risks. You might not get everything you want.

But you would be hard-pressed to find many complaints from those shoppers out buying then. If you want something guaranteed, the stores are all yours in early November.

No doubt that retailers hate the way this goes, how it's a nail-biter until the end.

They could change it if they wanted, going back to the old days of holding off on any big sales until after Christmas.

But they won't, mainly because it would be tough to make it happen unless everyone changed their ways at once. Try that in the super-competitive retail marketplace.

It's also not really worth it. The surge in buying in the last few weeks usually boosts sales close to or above expectations.

As for me, chances are I'll be back for that cashmere sweater later this month. And probably lots of other things that I've eyed in recent weeks.

It's hard to resist a great bargain.

Rachel Beck is the national business columnist for The Associated Press. Write to her at rbeck@ap.org.