Issue №18 - Time to get our heads wrapped around some turkey, stuffing, and rivalry college football games as we mix an Apple Cup Kiss - while we consider how retailers and brands will do this season.
One trend I noticed intensifying in the pandemic and since - which may mean it’s a permanent shift- is the lengthening of the peak period.
I think a number of factors including popularity of Prime Day but also all the random stuff like the deliver driver labor crunch, the run on cardboard, and other shortage issues got smart retailers to peanut butter their promotional calendar back into October.
As the pandemic fades in the rear view mirror maybe we will see a return to the intense cyber 5 spike of the 2010s but I doubt it.
One thing that means imo is that you really have to have your act together when it comes to devops/cicd and so forth. You can’t really run a business where everything technical pauses for months.
Looking forward to your next piece on architecture!
Peter, very true. For the merchants, they want to spread the demand out for a host of reasons, many of which you outline. But they also want to capture it early, with the goal to build on it with the consumer as they continue to spend closer to the holidays. The Q3 & Oct results were soft to middling which indicates the strategy may not really be having the desired effect. Holiday '23 is not a disaster by any means, but it is kinda 'meh' in my view and thus my sense is that the current conditions for tech and services community will persist.
Great piece.
One trend I noticed intensifying in the pandemic and since - which may mean it’s a permanent shift- is the lengthening of the peak period.
I think a number of factors including popularity of Prime Day but also all the random stuff like the deliver driver labor crunch, the run on cardboard, and other shortage issues got smart retailers to peanut butter their promotional calendar back into October.
As the pandemic fades in the rear view mirror maybe we will see a return to the intense cyber 5 spike of the 2010s but I doubt it.
One thing that means imo is that you really have to have your act together when it comes to devops/cicd and so forth. You can’t really run a business where everything technical pauses for months.
Looking forward to your next piece on architecture!
Peter, very true. For the merchants, they want to spread the demand out for a host of reasons, many of which you outline. But they also want to capture it early, with the goal to build on it with the consumer as they continue to spend closer to the holidays. The Q3 & Oct results were soft to middling which indicates the strategy may not really be having the desired effect. Holiday '23 is not a disaster by any means, but it is kinda 'meh' in my view and thus my sense is that the current conditions for tech and services community will persist.