A case of the (holiday season) Mondays

It seems hard to believe considering that I feel like I am still new to New York, but this year marks my seventh straight calling retailers first thing on Monday morning to ask them how their weekend sales were.

Michelle Graff michelle.graff@nationaljeweler.com

Over the years, I’ve become adjusted to a few jewelers telling us that the post-Thanksgiving weekend really isn’t a big one for them. It, they say, mostly is about consumers rushing out to stores such as Best Buy or Walmart to get what is purported as the best deal on the latest tech gadget or the season’s hottest toy.

It makes perfect sense, especially considering that so many of the jewelry-for-Christmas purchasers are men, who prefer to procrastinate until about Dec. 23 before making up their minds on gifts. Oh, boys …

Still, I think there is value in seeing how the holiday season started for retailers, what they sold, if anything, and how they think Thanksgiving weekend bodes for the rest of the holiday season. (In case you missed yesterday’s story, the answer for 2013 is very well.) We think it’s beneficial for retailers to know what their peers are up to and we hope you, our readers, feel the same.

I think it’s also worthwhile to look at the overall picture and, while there are many, many surveys out there these days, I rely on the data produced by the National Retail Federation, a trade organization for the retail industry as a whole.

One of the main takeaways from the NRF data is this: Outside of department stores, more consumers shopped online than anywhere else over the holiday weekend.

For the survey, the NRF polled more than 4,000 consumers and then extrapolated that data to paint an overall picture of consumer behavior over the weekend.

When asked where they shopped (a category in which they could pick more than one response), 54 percent of survey-takers said department stores while 42 percent said online. That’s more than picked discount stores (39 percent), electronics stores (32 percent) and clothing stores (29 percent).

Online shopping will only continue to grow in popularity, and retailers (must) know this by now.

While she hated to admit it as a brick-and-mortar storeowner, Arizona retailer Stephenie Bjorkman, CEO of Sami Fine Jewelry, acknowledged in our interview Monday morning that Amazon.com, the giant among online retailers, is pretty great, and I wouldn’t argue.

It is nice to be able to sit in the comfort of your own home, find exactly what you want by simply typing in a few keywords and have it delivered to your doorstep in no time at all,

Banner will be right here …

all without having to get wet, be cold and fight crowds or traffic.

Almost everyone does it, at least once in a while. This past weekend, “almost everyone” totaled 59 million shoppers who spent 44 percent of the entire weekend’s budget online, according to the NRF.

So what does this mean for brick-and-mortar retailers, even those off to a fast start this holiday season? They need to make shopping in their store more than just shopping. It needs to be an experience.

Whether that involves throwing a holiday party with a fun theme, coming up with a fantastic giveaway that’s only available in-store and/or giving customers the ability to be part of the design process, it is something each store owner must decide for themselves, based on their demographics and resources.

But, if it wasn’t clear before, it certainly is now: putting merchandise in a display case and slapping a price tag on it isn’t enough anymore.

Or, as Arizona retailer Bjorkman puts it, “If you are going to compete with the Internet you have to do it on a personal level. If you’re just like every other store, why wouldn’t they buy online? It’s easier.”

Michelle Graffis the editor-in-chief at National Jeweler, directing the publication’s coverage both online and in print.