A Back To School in July Lesson

By Melissa TosettiI was reminded of an important retail lesson last week.  Timing is EVERYTHING!Our 4^th of July weekend plans included a visit to Paul’s dad’s house in Healdsburg.  Much of weekends there are spent playing in the Russian River.Although Dante has been taking swim lessons over the last few months, we wanted to buy a swim trainer for him to keep him as safe as possible.  So, we drove over to Target.I headed to the back corner of the store where they keep the seasonal items and was literally stopped in my tracks at what I saw.As you can see from the picture, where there should have been shelves of summer items to coincide with one of the peak weekends of the season, instead, there were shelves of school supplies.This year, they didn’t even have the decency to wait until AFTER July 4^th to torment children across the U.S. with their impending fate of going back to school.Yesterday as I walked through Costco, I was honestly expecting to see Halloween costumes at the front of the store.  My guess is that they’re only a few weeks away from hitting the sales floor.With all this said, the lesson  I learned last week is that despite going to Target almost a week before the 4^th of July holiday, the store was almost completely sold out of summer swim items.As much as I complain about retailers shoving the next season down our throat - people are buying.  It’s important to keep that in mind and not wait too long to purchase those seasonal items.  They may not still be there when you need them.