Almost 1 in 5 Americans wants to shop on Christmas Day, survey says
Technically Incorrect: It seems some people can't wait to return the iPhones and, um, Blackberrys and other thoughtful gifts. Thirty percent of millennials say they want stores to open on Christmas.
Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives.
Is nothing sacred?
Well, here in America shopping is. And I now have some data to prop up this assertion.
I have before me a survey in which Americans were asked some questions about their shopping lives. Among the questions was, "What would you do if retailers opened for business at 6 p.m. Christmas evening?"
You might imagine that some Americans would deem this such sacrilege that they'd storm the streets, protest at their local city halls and boycott their local malls for at least 24 hours.
O come, all ye faithful.
In the survey, however, 18 percent said they'd happily rush off to the store to, among other things, return the thoughtful gifts they'd received. Because, one imagines, Christmas just isn't Christmas without being able to have exactly what you want on Christmas Day.
Should you find this finding startling, or even disgraceful, please consider that in this very same survey 30 percent of millennials declared they'd certainly rush to the stores.
The research was performed online in November. LoyaltyOne Consulting, a company that says it specializes "in assessing, designing and implementing analytics-driven loyalty and customer experience strategies," surveyed 1,267 people from the ages of 18-65.
There's nothing like analytics-driven loyalty. This once used to be referred to as "marriage."
Some people in this survey did find the idea of a Christmas Day opening quite bile-inducing. Twenty-four percent said they'd be less likely to shop at a store that did open and less likely to recommend that store. (Frankly, I don't believe them.)
Perhaps there wouldn't be the same bellicose frenzy on Christmas evening as there is on Thanksgiving evening, where an eye for an iPhone and a tooth for a PS4 is regularly practiced.
But if Americans can't shut down their retail habits for just one day, what hope is there?
In any case, there's ample evidence that even on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, online shopping finally showed its supremacy over the far sweatier pursuit of trawling around malls.
Still, the one difficulty of online shopping on Christmas Day is that you can't immediately replace that ghastly gift that Uncle Harry was so sure you'd love.
There again, imagine the additional pain if you did go to the store on Christmas and the store had run out of the very thing you wanted.
The frustration would ruin your Christmas, wouldn't it?