For decades consumers have been conditioned to buy during the holidays, and despite the changing/evolving shopper patterns many still will. De-emphasizing the holiday season is a mistake. But the bigger point is that this is not an either/or proposition. Retailers can deliver an exciting holiday season for the shoppers who are inclined/excited by the season AND also do a better job of promoting throughout the year.

Let’s not go for a ride on the pendulum. The holiday season is important. Opening on Thanksgiving and doorbusters, not so much. Gosh, talk about throwing out the baby with the bath water. The holiday season is a real thing.

Traditionally the holiday season has been the most critical time for retailers to go from the red to the black. The importance of the 4th quarter remains, yet there are opportunities for retailers to provide transporting experiences throughout the year. The holiday season’s importance should remain, as there is such a significant amount of business to be done and it’s tied so closely to the seasonal merchandising strategies.

The call to arms is for retailers to provide compelling values, promotions and great shopping experiences throughout the year, and not just focus only on the November/December time period.

Theoretically, holiday season should be retired. Realistically, retail is all about the occasions. We have nothing but occasions in our retail calendar, so I don’t know how we stop doing special event selling. Whether it’s Memorial Day, Halloween, Easter, Valentines Day, Mother’s Day or Father’s Day, retail is built on occasions. I think it’s more about how you make these moments special to the consumer, and teaching retail to remain calm and not jump in because of FOMO. Black Friday probably has more players than it’s supposed to mostly because retailers are concerned about missing out on a consumer’s spending dollars.

I think it’s more about ensuring that whether you’re a brand or a retailer that the holiday season is relevant to you, and you’re discounting to drive meaningful sales numbers.

I can see where the author of the report makes her point. After all, data can be used in many ways to say many different things. But Christmas and Channukah come in December, not July. For that reason alone, holiday sales will be slanted toward the holiday season and not evenly year-round. De-emphasizing the holiday season might work in some corners of the world. I do not see it happening here. I wonder what marketers and advertisers think of this?

Black Friday is eroding in importance because it peaked in insanity about five years ago when people were knocking one another out over televisions and turkey basters.

I love Tom’s term “deal fatigue.” I’d attribute certain deal-based holiday’s lack of fanfare to deal fatigue — the constant inundation of red PERCENT OFF SIGNS and LAST CALL emails — rather than an ebb in consumer holiday spirit.

It’s definitely sensible for retailers to want to have strong sales year round. Relying on sales from a single month to make or break your year is risky no matter how you slice it. The holiday season is an important time for retail, and that will never change. But retailers should be diverse enough to handle a dip in holiday sales without going into the red. As we saw this year, Prime Day was a surprisingly large day for retail, and we won’t know to what extent it impacted holiday sales until the holiday season is over.

We’re told this is the age when consumers are in control. And that means there will always be a holiday selling season as well as a spring yard season, Mother’s Day, back-to-school and more.

Of course retailers would love to have identical, highly-profitable sales every month of the year. But consumers aren’t going to be re-invented to make that happen.

The only valid question is whether retailers can reduce their dependence on the holiday feeding frenzy or reduce the degree to which they encourage it.

As much as I agree that it would be better to balance sales throughout the year, the holiday season is a fact of life and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

As for Black Friday, it has become less important in recent years — but it remains a $55 billion opportunity for retailers and last year 89.8 percent of that spend was made in physical stores.

Rich and I have spent the wee hours of every Black Friday we can remember shivering in parking lots, talking with shoppers who are waiting in line for stores to open. They may be tired and cranky, but they’re anxious to save money and excited for the find. Like it or not, Black Friday has become a time honored tradition that many consumers look forward to, and plan for, all year long. They’ll stay home when it stops being exciting or the deals aren’t worth the wait. Until then let’s continue to make brick-and-mortar shopping fun, especially during the Golden Quarter holidays.

All the comments are somewhat correct. First, Black Friday is a non-food retail industry idea indicating the point when the retailer stops operating in the red. This is not a consumer event and most have no idea what you are talking about when you say Black Friday. So January 2 through Thanksgiving they lose money and for the next five weeks make up for the loss and generate a profit. Many retailers went out of business following this business model. All you needed was a bad holiday to kill a company. Sam Walton best understood this was a failing idea with a model that made money every day.

Retailers should get off the Black Friday, internal-looking perspective and into the holiday by assisting consumers finding the right gift. Stop decorating the stores in August. After Halloween is fine. The online shoppers will continue to grow, but expect more Christmas club-type shoppers to balance the household cash flow.

No, retailers and brands should not de-emphasize the holiday season. The holidays aren’t going away from any consumers’ minds, so why should we remove the focus? Shoppers still expect holiday promotions, so any efforts to the contrary will result in lost sales to those merchants that choose to continue the traditional promotional campaigns.

The holiday season would not be the holiday season without shopping. I haven’t read the HBR article yet and certainly wouldn’t want to appear disingenuous, but the thinking smacks of someone looking at retailing through an accountant’s lens. Yes, it may be logical, but boy would it make for a dull year. If there was any mileage in the argument, can you explain to me why Amazon has created Prime Day and Alibaba Singles’ Day?