{"id":1503,"date":"2014-12-19T06:28:36","date_gmt":"2014-12-19T06:28:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.surveycrest.com\/blog\/?p=1503"},"modified":"2019-03-12T13:10:21","modified_gmt":"2019-03-12T13:10:21","slug":"7-observations-about-holiday-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.surveycrest.com\/blog\/7-observations-about-holiday-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"7 Interesting Observations About Holiday Season 2014 Celebrations!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Holiday Shopping season is already here and it seems like  it&rsquo;s going to be a fantastic one, especially, for the Apple and Frozen brands,  and temporary job seekers.<\/p>\n<p>Many things go unnoticed about the end-of-the-year holiday  shopping season period. We don&rsquo;t know how aggressively retailers fight the  price wars in the competitive market. For instance, we don&rsquo;t know how an  emerging toy becomes a must-have gift for legions of children all across the  USA. But there are some things that we surely know and they are as under: <\/p>\n<h2>1. The Holiday Season has Already Begun<\/h2>\n<p>Every year the shopping period initiates  around September, followed by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.surveycrest.com\/blog\/budgeting-the-real-scare-of-halloween\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Halloween  in October<\/strong><\/a>, due to its increased marketing of the scary costumes and  pumpkins. But all this is at one side, and winter holiday shopping is at another.  The major focus of the retailers is on the winter holiday shopping season. This  is the reason why stores make their shopping seasons bigger every year. Stores  like Walmart, Kmart, Target and Toys R Us roll out their different versions of  the season&rsquo;s &ldquo;Hot Toys&rdquo; list way before kids make their own wish list for the  holidays.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.surveycrest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/The-holiday-season-has-already-begun.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.surveycrest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/The-holiday-season-has-already-begun.gif\" alt=\"The holiday season has already begun\" title=\"The holiday season has already begun\" width=\"500\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1505\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>2. Purchase of Gadgets and &ldquo;Frozen&rdquo; Merchandize is Required by Law<\/h2>\n<p>Well, it only seems that way because of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/2014-09-23\/-frozen-is-still-hot-as-disney-dominates-toy-list.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><strong>hot  toys list that consists of Frozen merchandize<\/strong><\/a>, although, it&rsquo;s been months  since a Disney movie was in the cinemas. If it&rsquo;s not about the 3 foot tall Elsa  doll then the buyers steer towards the techie items like Vtech smartwatch for  kids.<\/p>\n<p>As far as the tech items for adults are  concerned, they have cooler stuff like the series of new Amazon tablets or  Apple&rsquo;s sexy iPhones.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.surveycrest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Purchase-of-gadgets.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.surveycrest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Purchase-of-gadgets.gif\" alt=\"Purchase of gadgets\" title=\"Purchase of gadgets\" width=\"440\" height=\"232\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1506\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>3. Longer Store Hours And Shorter Checkout Queues<\/h2>\n<p>Stores, during holiday season remain open up to straight 88 hours or  even longer when Christmas is round the corner. This year Target tends to rebuild its position by launching longer hours including  midnight closings and making it a convenient and fashionable place to shop.  Walmart surprisingly promises to keep its checkout lines open during its peak  shopping hours throughout the holiday season.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.surveycrest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Longer-store-hours-and-shorter-checkout-queues.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.surveycrest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Longer-store-hours-and-shorter-checkout-queues.gif\" alt=\"Longer store hours and shorter checkout queues\" title=\"Longer store hours and shorter checkout queues\" width=\"500\" height=\"199\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1507\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>4. Best Time to Grab A Seasonal Job<\/h2>\n<p>Retailers hired about 325,000 workers for the holiday season back in 2008. The  figure is increasing annually, hitting 786,000 a year ago. According to a  report by Challenger, Grey &amp; Christmas, researchers say that the seasonal employment brought a  significant output to the retail industry in 2013. <em>Toys R Us<\/em> announced that it is hiring almost 45,000 seasonal  employees this year which is double their existing workforce. Similarly UPS  plans to hire 95,000 workers for the holiday season. Best time for many jobless  people out there to make the most out of this holiday season.\n<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.surveycrest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Best-time-to-grab-a-seasonal-job.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.surveycrest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Best-time-to-grab-a-seasonal-job.gif\" alt=\"Best time to grab a seasonal job\" title=\"Best time to grab a seasonal job\" width=\"490\" height=\"252\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1508\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>5. People Will Shop Online Earlier to Avoid Late Deliveries<\/h2>\n<p>Pitney  Bowes, an e-commerce and shipping consulting firm, states in its survey that,  people will shop online way before the holidays in order to avoid the shipping  problems that they faced last year. The survey says that 49% people want to  shop online earlier this year. The reason is pretty obvious that customers  don&rsquo;t want to receive their shipments late. Many customers were disappointed  because Amazon, Kohl&rsquo;s orders were delayed and couldn&rsquo;t reach the customers  before <a href=\"https:\/\/www.surveycrest.com\/blog\/merry-christmas-happy-holidays-for-entrepreneurs\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Christmas  in 2013<\/strong><\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.surveycrest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/avoid-late-deliveries.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.surveycrest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/avoid-late-deliveries.gif\" alt=\"Avoid Late Deliveries\" title=\"Avoid Late Deliveries\" width=\"500\" height=\"207\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1509\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>6. Apple Users Outspend Androiders<\/h2>\n<p>According to a new IBM Report,  last year average orders placed for the Apple devices were of worth $121.48 as compared  to that of Android which was just $89. The data also reveals the fact that  while more web surfing is done through smartphones; consumers tend to make  online purchases through their tablets more than their smartphones.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.surveycrest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Apple-users-outspend-Androiders.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.surveycrest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Apple-users-outspend-Androiders.gif\" alt=\"Apple users outspend Androiders\" title=\"Apple users outspend Androiders\" width=\"500\" height=\"500\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-1510\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>7. Influenced by Digital, But Prefer in-person Purchases<\/h2>\n<p>Deloitte  forecast calls a 4%-4.5% increase in the holiday season shopping. Researchers  point out that around 50% of the shoppers are influenced by digital interaction  (like browsing online), but only 14% of the purchases are made via e-stores.  When it comes to holiday season shopping, consumers still prefer spending  limitless times in the stores and shop physically.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.surveycrest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/prefer-in-person-purchases.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.surveycrest.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/prefer-in-person-purchases.gif\" alt=\"Prefer in Person Purchases\" title=\"Prefer in Person Purchases\" width=\"500\" height=\"206\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1511\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Considering all the aforementioned factors about the 2014  holiday shopping season in mind, we hope that you are ready with all the  necessary preparations required for this year holidays. So hurry up and hit the  stores and grab all that you can for yourself and your loved ones. Wishing you  all happiness throughout the holidays!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Holiday Shopping season is already here and it seems like it&rsquo;s going to be a fantastic one, especially, for the Apple and Frozen brands, and temporary job seekers. Many things go unnoticed about the end-of-the-year holiday shopping season period. We don&rsquo;t know how aggressively retailers fight the price wars in the competitive market. For instance, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[328],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hot-and-trending"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.surveycrest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.surveycrest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.surveycrest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.surveycrest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.surveycrest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1503"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.surveycrest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4451,"href":"https:\/\/www.surveycrest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1503\/revisions\/4451"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.surveycrest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.surveycrest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.surveycrest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.surveycrest.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}