The date seems to get bumped up further and further each year. Inevitably, we will soon be seeing Christmas decorations in many stores and we will soon be bombarded with a huge assortment of holiday products for sale. The same thing can be said about other major holidays throughout the year, like Easter, Thanksgiving, and Halloween.

So, the question as a brick and mortar business (or even as a web-based one) is, “How early is too early?” On the one hand, you want to be able to capitalize on the keeners who like to get their holiday-related shopping as early as possible, cashing on that opportunity. On the other hand, many people are turned off by stores that jump into the holiday spirit, so to speak, much earlier than they would have liked to see the stores do it.

It’s only September and we have at least two major holidays (Thanksgiving and Halloween) between now and Christmas, but I’m already starting to see several dollar stores, for instance, selling holiday decorations and other related items. Is this too early? It really depends on your kind of business as well. If you sell unique items that take time to produce for customers, like custom photo books and the like, it makes sense to have a bigger window of opportunity. For a dollar store, I’m not so sure that it’s the right way to go.

What are your thoughts? What is the earliest that you’ve seen a store set up for the Christmas holiday shopping season? How early do you think is too early?