Many kids just started school. It’s technically still summer until September 22. On Wednesday, temperatures hit around 100 degrees throughout the Northeast. But don’t worry about any of that: Retailers say now’s the time to start thinking about Santa, snowmen, and Christmas shopping. Just last week, the National Retail Federation—whose job it is to support efforts to help retailers reach consumers (and their dollars)—was still focusing on back-to-school shopping. It hasn’t even started pumping up Halloween spending yet. Nonetheless, retailers and gift item makers are trying to give the holiday shopping season its earliest ever jumpstart. On Thursday, Walmart announced its hot holiday toy list, this year with a twist: Rather than going the usual route and having adults decide which toys children want most, the world’s largest retailer surveyed kids and asked them to pick their favorites. “We are taking the guesswork out of customers’ holiday toy shopping by turning to kids to tell us what the real top toys are,” Scott McCall, Walmart’s senior vice president of toys and seasonal, said in a press release. (Come to think of it: Parents, it might be a good idea to turn to your kids and ask what they want, rather than relying on other kids’ opinions.) Starting Friday, September, 13, Walmart’s hot toys, as well as many other items, are eligible for the retailer’s lay away program, which no longer tacks on the usual fees this season. Earlier in the week—105 days before Christmas, an AdAge report noted—Kmart aired its earliest ever holiday ad, featuring a giant gingerbread man and a voiceover warning shoppers, “Don’t let the holidays sneak up on you.” For the 2012 season, Kmart’s first holiday commercial didn’t hit the airwaves until just before Halloween. (MORE: Ouch! Majority of ‘Hot’ Holiday Toys Cost $50 or More) Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported that electronics makers and retailers have been busy launching and marketing new gadgets that they hope will be hot gift items when people actually get around to giving them—more than three months down the line. There’s![]()
