[9/6/16] The back-to-school shopping season is a relic of the past.
Weeks of frenzied spending ahead of the school year once helped jump-start the all-important holiday shopping season.
For investors, it was used to predict how strong spending would be in the critical months to come.
“You would see moms arriving in stores and shopping malls with fistfuls of cash, buying bundles of stuff — stacks of tops, bottoms, and accessories for their kids,” says Mark Cohen, the former CEO of Sears Canada. “They were stocking up on everything to take advantage of the promotions and reduced prices.”
But those days are long over and “back-to-school shopping has disappeared,” according to Cohen, now the director of retail studies at Columbia Business School.
Retailers killed the end-of-summer shopping frenzy with continuous promotions during the rest of the year, he says.
“The industry has gotten into this really Armageddon-like race to the bottom with promotional pricing,” Cohen says. “Once upon a time these sales were a once-in-a-year opportunity, and now you can find them every week, year-round…CONTINUE READING