Nov 16, 2000

The shopping season: baa or buy

(From The Economist print edition, Nov 16th 2000)
On November 24th, the day after Thanksgiving, Americans will follow their gluttony with a bacchanal of early Christmas shopping. Forecasters will track retail trends and offer grave assessments of the season's prospects. Chirpy local-TV journalists will interview mall-goers about credit-card excess. And Kelly Leffler, a writer in Hollywood, will dress up like a sheep, march to Los Angeles's most prestigious mall, the Beverly Centre, and bleat.

Ms Leffler's ovine activism is part of Buy Nothing Day (BND). Launched in 1992 by Kalle Lasn, a big-business-bashing journalist, BND was originally a modest consumer-awareness campaign in the states of Washington and Oregon; it took off in 1995, when Mr Lasn took his anti-shopping crusade online. Now the declared aim of the 1m non-shoppers whom Mr Lasn hopes to mobilise next week will be to convince other consumers not to buy anything on America's biggest shopping day.
Over-consumption, argues the BND crowd, is wrecking the environment and dragging down the quality of life. A television commercial that runs on local public television and CNN Headline News (Mr Lasn buys nothing from the three big networks) points out that "the average North American consumes five times more than a Mexican, ten times more than a Chinese person, and 30 times more than a person from India"; meanwhile a pig of North American dimensions belches into the camera.
"All around the world people are invading malls, wearing pig masks, having credit-card cut-ups in front of guards," Mr Lasn exults. Two years ago, climbers from the Ruckus Society (of Seattle-riot fame) suspended themselves from the rafters of the 800-store Mall of America in St Paul, Minnesota, with a giant banner exhorting visitors not to shop. This year some "radical cheerleaders" ("We don't need it, we don't want it / That shit makes me want to vomit!") hope to invade a mall in Denver. Lennie Dusek, a supporter in Little Rock, Arkansas, is hosting a gift swap. "You bring a box of stuff, rather than your wallet," she explains. "And you trade with stuff that's already there."

It comes earlier every year

As it happens, some retailers might prefer to see slightly fewer shoppers. They are short of staff and worry about coping with the rush. In Chicago, shops are paying as much as $13 an hour for part-time help, plus bonuses and generous shop discounts. Sears, which needs 45,000 part-time holiday workers this year, is recruiting housewives, students, recently retired people and others who are not normally looking for paid work (and thus perhaps worrying Alan Greenspan, who regards demand for such folk as a telling inflation indicator).
Diane Swonk, Bank One's chief economist, reckons that retail sales in November and December will be 6.5% higher than last year. A survey conducted by the National Retail Federation has found that 82% of consumers expect to spend as much or more during the holidays as last year. The average American consumer will plonk down $836 for gifts. Shopkeepers are excited by a "great calendar"; Christmas falls on a Monday, leaving the weekend for last-minute gifts.
The anti-shopping sheep can cling on to a few hopes. Interest rates and heating costs are higher this year. In California, where consumers plan to spend 20% less on gifts, according to the NRF survey, many former dot.com managers will have fewer packages under the tree. And there are those credit cards. Personal borrowing has crept up from 26% of personal income in 1985 to 34% in 2000; and the number of personal bankruptcies has quadrupled over the same period. The end may not be nigh, but it cannot be all that far away. Meanwhile, Ms Leffler has a problem: "Anyone know where you can get a cheap sheep costume?"

(The article can be found on line at