Thread: Michaels' Craft stores---huh?

Tweet

I went to Michaels' this morning and they had all of their halloween marked down, some already 50% off.

AND, to make it worse it's all in one isle and they are unpacking christmas.

Did I sleep through Halloween and Thanksgiving?

Nope. I was in Michaels yesterday and noticed it too. Most of the stuff is marked down. It's condensed to one aisle and Christmas is overtaking the whole store. Then again, what can you expect when they put their stuff out in mid August. Ours never even set up any of their animatronics to display. A really poor showing from Mikes this year, IMO.

Hobby Lobby is about the same story. They discounted the fall and Halloween stuff back in early Sept. 40%. Christmas is the biggest game in town. And the stockholders and the retail industry want to see big numbers on the Christmas game. I think they are running the risk of disenfranchising the general public from buying anything for the any holiday if they keep shoving the holidays farther back. Walmart doesn't even bother carrying most of the Halloween stuff they offer online in the stores for people to buy locally. With the steady decline in the Halloween decor that is occurring, people probably wouldn't buy the useless garbage anyway.

I stopped in Rite Aid about 2 weeks ago because I'd heard good things about the stuff they're carrying - they had about 1/2 aisle of nothing spectacular directly across from the Christmas cards. Insane!

Same thing at the Michaels here in Iowa-the isle was messy and things were just thrown on top of each other, but they are doing a nice job setting up Christmas stuff.....it was really sad to see...Michaels is not the same anymore for Halloween.

The economic downturn in the economy has the retailers trying to get a jump start on holiday sales. They firgure you (the buyer) will have four months to save and purcahse the items and not standard 6 to 8 weeks.

Dave
Norfolk, VA

Originally Posted by gooosehunter

The economic downturn in the economy has the retailers trying to get a jump start on holiday sales. They firgure you (the buyer) will have four months to save and purcahse the items and not standard 6 to 8 weeks.

Dave
Norfolk, VA

Exactly.

Although ultimately it may be a good thing for us, we can get some of that overpriced, yet still kinda cool, merch at a decent price.

Michaels always does this. Don't be surprised if the Halloween stuff is completely ushered off the floor by November 1. They are trying to prevent massive Nov. 1 sale of merch at a loss so they are doing everything they can to get rid of it by Oct. 31. It's crap as I know for a fact most of their merchandise is marked up beyond belief. If Dollar Tree can earn a profit on a $1 bag of skulls that Michaels is charging $2.50 for (same packaging and all), then they can surely let the 50-60% off sale go into November.

Well, let's face it, they are a craft store which means people shop there to get supplies to make stuff. they always clear out their stuff before the actual holiday, so that the people who make stuff for the next holiday can get a jump on it. I may go up and pick through, when I was there Friday, they had cases of foam skulls they had not unpacked yet.

Same thing here in the Chicago area. I was able to pick up the lighted rat, which by my calculations should have been $20 and some change this week, for $12.99. No idea if other merchandise had hidden markdowns also. None of the three stores I've visited this week had much left, and all of it had been condensed down in favor of making more room for Christmas merchandise.