November 1, 2005

Santa Arriving Early...and Often

Anticipating a weak holiday sales season, many retailers are starting early...very early.

They figure that high fuel prices (for cars...and for heating consumers' homes) are going to dampen holiday spirits...especially when the weather turns colder.

The Postal Service, for example, figures that a penny increase in the price of gas has an $8 million impact on the Postal Service's bottom line.

Remember when holiday season advertising began at Thanksgiving? This year, it started for many in mid October...the earliest time ever.

Only time will tell if fourth quarters do well because of this early push. My money is that all this early bird stuff will have a minimal to negative impact. It just seems to me that the early advertising is being done for the benefit of the retailers. Where's the benefit for the consumers?

I'll bet that the January sales start early too....maybe in mid December. Then the retailers will really be shooting themselves in the foot.

Google Rocks

There's a great piece on Google in the Sunday Times. Check out this fact:

This year, Google will sell $6.1 billion in ads, nearly double what it sold last year. That is more advertising than is sold by any newspaper chain, magazine publisher, or television network. By next year, Goldman Sach's analyst expects Google to have advertising revenues of $9.5 billion. That would place it fourth among American media companies in total ad sales after Viacom, the News Corporation, and the Walt Disney Company, but ahead of giants including NBC Universal and Time Warner.

Read that again, and just think about it! Wow!!