Episode 304 – Business of the Holidays
On this episode of the Business and Society podcast, host Jeff Karoub sits down with Scott Rick, associate professor of marketing, and Ari Shwayder, lecturer of business economics and public policy, to discuss the business of the holidays.
The panel explores several topics, including retail therapy as a response to the election, a return to pre-pandemic spending levels on the macroeconomic scale, the holiday shopping habits of “tightwads” and “spendthrifts,” and “Amazonification” in conjunction with the rise of online spending.
Below are a few key quotes from the episode.
Post-election spending
“In the shadow of the election, I would expect a lot of retail therapy, many people curing some questionable feelings through shopping. And my research suggests that that's not always a bad thing for you personally. You can get out of hand, of course, but it can help sometimes. I think some people are feeling kind of overwhelmed with the news and kind of what's coming in the new year…I think many people will be turning inward for comfort and personal escape.”
-Scott Rick
“We just had sort of the big shopping days last week and giving Tuesday and all those sorts of things. And the early data we get from that shows that things went pretty well. Economists have been looking at this vibecession for the last couple of years because we've been very confused about it. Some of it is just that economists track different data necessarily than what people are looking at in their everyday lives. Also, there's just a lot of heterogeneity. You know, the average might be great. The top half of the distribution of income or households are feeling fine and doing great, but the bottom half may not be feeling fine and doing great…If you look at the overall data, it seems like things are going pretty well sales wise this year round. And you're looking at the Giving Tuesday data that we just had earlier this week. Giving was up this year by a gigantic amount based on early estimates. So it seems like people are willing to open their wallets this year.”
-Ari Shwayder
Holiday marketing in an Amazon world
“I like how our local literati bookstore addresses [marketing in an Amazon world]. They really lean into the fact that they are not Amazon and kind of celebrate that they are not being run by someone who a lot of people have really questionable feelings towards and, you know, don't like everything he's up to. And so they really kind of celebrate that. They are locally owned and small, and I think that's a smart approach. It's what I would do if I were running a smaller business. So, I think there will still be a flood of people going to Amazon, but I think some smaller companies – if they're strategic – have a fighting chance to stave that off a little.”
-Scott Rick
Holiday job and labor market
“[Holiday seasonal employment] is still sort of an open question. Looking at seasonal employment trends, lots of stores and restaurants want to hire lots of people. In usual years, it's about 500,000 to 600,000 jobs that are sort of seasonal employment…It's a fairly small percentage of the overall labor force in the US, which is about 160 million people.
But when I look at the overall numbers – unemployment rates are low…the ratio of unemployed people to job openings is actually less than one. So there are fewer unemployed people than there are job openings out there in the economy right now, which, again, is very low historically…I would think if I'm a retailer, I might have a little bit of trouble finding people to fill all of the positions that I want.”
-Ari Shwayder
Have thoughts about topics we should cover?
Send us an email at [email protected].
Want to hear more from Ross students, faculty, and alumni?
Check out more of our podcasts.
Business Beyond Usual: Full-time MBA students at Michigan Ross tackle burning issues on campus and the world beyond. In every episode, the student hosts discuss a topic of importance for current and prospective students through interviews with current students, alumni, faculty, and administrators.
Working for the Weekend: A deep dive into the daily life of part-time MBAs at Michigan Ross. Weekend and online MBA students discuss their experiences and advice for prospective and current students.
Down to Business: Join Dean Sharon Matusik as she interviews Michigan Ross alums in the C-Suite to learn how Ross set them on a path to organizational leadership.
About the participants
Host: JT Godfrey
Producers: JT Godfrey and Jeff Karoub
Guests: Professors Scott Rick and Ari Shwayder
Audio Engineer: Jonah Brockman
Editorial Production: Mads Henke
