Ugh. Hallloween In July As Stores Keeping Pushing Seasons Earlier And Earlier

Just some of the extensive selection of Halloween
candy at a Shaw's Supermarket in Colchester,
Vermont on July 31. Couldn't find stuff
I needed for summer, though.  

Every holiday is getting earlier and earlier, at least in the eyes of retailers.

Sunday, July 31, I stopped into a Shaw's supermarket in Colchester, Vermont to buy, among other things, some sun screen. Because I work outdoors frequently and need the protection.

I finally found some buried on a back shelf somewhere, but it was hard. Why? Because there was aisle after aisle of Halloween candy, but nothing you would need for summer.

I'm not finding much good information on line as to why stores put out seasonal goods so early. I'm sure it's a way for them to make more money.

It's infuriating, though. I buy things when I need them. I think most people do. Around August 1, I'm apt to buy sun screen, bug spray, a new pair of shorts to replace the ones I ripped rolling around in the grass with the dogs. Things like that.

But most retailers have decided I can't buy this stuff I need. I'm expected to plan ahead, and know precisely how much bug spray and sun screen I'll need for the summer way back in March. I'm supposed to be psychic. Because we're required, say the Retail Gods, to buy things six months before we actually need them. 

The summer stuff is not on store shelves now, when I want and need it.

Merchants claim it's out fault, that consumers demand that they stock items ever earlier every year.

I don't think that's true, though. Oh sure, there's a few weirdos who like to shop for back to school items a month before school lets out in May. A few other weenies think it's all Christmas all the time and shop for the holiday year round.

What's really going on is they stock things way, way earlier, training us to buy way, way early. But then we misplace the summer stuff we had to buy in February, or the kids get into the Halloween candy in August, a month after we were forced to purchase it, so we have to buy more

That way, the stores make more money.

The early season stuff is also stores wanting to get our attention first.

"The marketplace is so competitive that they can't take a chance that people are going to spend their $50 somewhere else," Purdue University retail management pofessor Richard Feinberg told NPR in 2011. 

Let's face it. Retailers hate us, and just want our money. They don't want us to buy things during the season when we need it, because that's not much of a money maker.

Retailers and their season creep sucks.