Are early Christmas sales an indicator of tough economic times?

If we're headed for more tough economic times, Thursday's Le Droit may have found an unconventional leading indicator to support this: Christmas sales are coming early this year. Ottawa-area Costcos are already selling artificial Christmas trees and snow globes, apparently. And the Bay is planning on kicking off its Christmas sales a month early, starting in mid-October instead of mid-November.

The retailers aren't citing pending economic doom as their motivation. Costco is running with an-early-bird-catches the worm strategy; its spokesman told Le Droit, "We strongly believe in the concept of 'first on the shelves, first sold.'" The Bay, meanwhile, says it has found people like to put out their Christmas decorations before the weather turns really cold.

But pretend for a moment that you're a retailer, and you expect that the economy is going to implode smack dab in the middle of the busiest sales period of the year. What would you do? I'd try to get people to do their Christmas shopping as early as possible, before stock markets have a chance to collapse, companies lay off employees and consumers shut their wallets.

An ingenious nudge

I discovered a very bright "nudge" while meeting up with some friends at the local Royal Oak last night (for non-Ottawan readers, it's probably the biggest pub chain in the nation's capital).

The Royal Oak does a good job of providing a decent atmosphere, decent food and a decent pint. They are also do a surprisingly good job of using anchors to their advantage. Anchors are quite simple and can be very effective — by triggering a customer's mind to a specific price or rate, you can affect how much they value a product.

Hairdressing is also way too socialist

I thought Vancouver's taxi industry is way too socialist. But I found another example that might top it.

In the Outaouais region (the Quebec portion of Greater Ottawa), central planners have been controlling hair cuts: who you can get them from, the minimum price hairdressers can charge, and what hours they can work. According to an article in Le Droit, it's a depression-era practice that was repealed decades ago everywhere else in Quebec, but for some reason still exists in the Outaouais area.