Hark the holiday shoppers ring

The calendar still says “summer,” but on many store shelves, it’s already Halloween, with Santa in hot pursuit.

Nothing new in that – except that it’s your job to make it fresh and interesting.
This year, that won’t be difficult, with analysts anxiously seeking signs of recovery in consumer spending. Speaking of which, tomorrow be on the lookout for both the ICSC/Goldman Sachs weekly chain-store report and the Census Bureau’s monthly take on retail sales.

Keep those sites handy for context as you craft seasonal stories.

With retail results lackluster so far this year, merchants need to squeeze all they can out of these last few months. You’ll want to focus on the type and timing of promotional efforts, inventory strategies and other tactics that shoppers will notice.

Planning is key to effective business features. Don’t wait until the week before Thanksgiving to develop your sources; anyone connected to the shopping scene is too busy then. Now is the time to get to know managers, corporate PR staff, clerks and analysts.

Let your creativity flow. Once I worked for a business editor who cleverly convened a retail roundtable in early fall. We hosted six or eight area mall managers for coffee, pastries and a free-flowing discussion of challenges, forecasts and trends — everything from seasonal hiring to the year’s hot toys and fashion items. It produced excellent story ideas we wouldn’t otherwise have known about. It also gave us several hours to establish credibility with people who then were more willing to answer our calls.

We wrote a Q&A out of the meeting itself, with photos and mini-bios of the executives and the malls they managed. Imagine the interactive map you could do, with pull quotes, pop-up mall stats and more.

A hot topic for such a group this year: empty storefronts. Strip-shopping-center vacancies hit a 17-year-high, and malls were looking pretty grim too, according to this July report from Reuters. Ask operators and developers what they’re doing to make those empty spaces more festive and more profitable; in past years, I’ve seen everything from temporary seasonal stores (the Halloween ones already are moving in) to gift-wrap and hospitality centers to nonprofit fund-raisers and craft sellers.

Speaking of festive, Google around for the firms that do seasonal decorating at your local shopping malls; they’re also great sources of trend anecdotes.

Holiday hiring will be top of readers’ minds; this year, the supply of elves will likely exceed demand.

For all these stories, make your source list and check it twice — and avoid last-minute shopping for experts.