It’s the most wonderful time of the year

The Christmas season is here, the high streets are filling up, consumers are stocking up on Christmas goodies and retailers are getting ready for the biggest shopping time of the year. Whether it’s M&S’ two fairies, Monty the penguin or the eye-catching golden cab in Selfridges, retail displays are spreading joy, cheer and smiles throughout the high streets of Britain.

Every consumer knows the feeling of walking into a lovely Christmas decorated store from the cold and frost of the high street. You automatically get an overwhelming sense that it’s Christmas from the twinkling lights, smells, the sounds of Christmas carols playing in the background and the warmth.

Retailers have clicked onto this, Christmas is the biggest shopping time of year. Shops like Harrods, Selfridges, John Lewis, M&S and Debenhams go all out at Christmas to ensure their shops stand out from the crowd to encourage consumers in. The point of the sparkly Christmas displays and the Christmas smells wafting through the shops is to put consumers in the Christmas spirit so they want to shop and spend their money with them.

But is this really such a bad thing? The idea that the window display, shop layout, design, Christmas scents and twinkly lights influence and encourage people to shop and spend money is nothing new.

Retailing is a very important activity at this time of year and leisure activity that most of us enjoy. We like to walk along the high street when the Christmas lights are on, peer into all the wonderful shops and stop and admire their beautiful Christmas retail displays.

Christmas comes around every year and you can be sure that each year you’ll find us crying over the John Lewis advert and swooning over the Selfridges window display, but Christmas just wouldn’t be the same if we didn’t. Retailers may work hard all year to get their retail displays right for the Christmas period so consumers spend more money with them, but consumers love the Christmas atmosphere just as much.

Do you think that Christmas store themes and window displays make consumers fall into the hands of retailers, or is that what Christmas is about? If you love Christmas retail displays, who’s display has caught your eye this year?