GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - It’s now November, and retailers are already working to generate interest in the holiday shopping season.
On Thursday, both Kohl's and Target released Black Friday ads, three weeks in advance.
Meanwhile, seventeen major retailers defaulted on debts since the beginning of last year.
Those companies include Sears, Payless, GNC, Rue 21, Bon-Ton Stores and David's Bridal, according to S&P Global Ratings.
Even during the financial crisis, only five defaulted in 2009 and five in 2010, which were the worst years until 2017.
13 ON YOUR SIDE set out to VERIFY: Could a poor holiday season for some major retailers cause them to completely close?
The holiday season is always an important time for major retailers, but this year especially, many of them are really feeling the crunch.
“A lot of retailers are facing this heavy pressure and not responding well to it, so it's leading up to this being a crucial year,” said Chris Hinsch, associate professor of marketing at Grand Valley State University.
That pressure is coming from online retailers.
“The biggest group of consumers right now age wise, demographically, is millennials, and millennials buy differently," Hinsch said. "As a general rule they don't find the value in the traditional retailing experience previous generations have.”
It’s now or never, given ideal economic conditions.
“If they can’t survive in this economic climate, they probably aren't going to survive going forward," Hinsch said. "The tax cuts which presumably have given shoppers more money in their pockets, you think about the stock market, which has been on a rollercoaster for last couple of weeks, but prior to that it was up big time… unemployment is at historic lows.”
So could a poor holiday season for some major retailers cause them to completely close?
“Yeah, there's no doubt about that," Hinsch said. "For many retailers this three month stretch, the final stretch of the year, is what makes or breaks their year. And if were piling poor sales on top of poor sales year after year, I could see several big retailers being pinched this holiday season."
►Make it easy to keep up to date with more stories like this. Download the 13 ON YOUR SIDE app now.
Have a news tip? Email news@wzzm13.com, visit our Facebook page or Twitter.