The Retailing Reality of Holiday Shopping — Presentation Detail — Celebration of Scholars

Instructions

Student presentations must have a faculty sponsor.

Abstracts must include a title and a description of the research, scholarship, or creative work. The description should be 150-225 words in length and constructed in a format or style appropriate for the presenter’s discipline.

The following points should be addressed within the selected format or style for the abstract:

A clear statement of the problem or question you pursued, or the scholarly goal or creative theme achieved in your work.
A brief comment about the significance or uniqueness of the work.
A clear description of the methods used to achieve the purpose or goals for the work.
A statement of the conclusions, results, outcomes, or recommendations, or if the work is still in progress, the results you expect to report at the event.

Presenter photographs should be head and shoulder shots comparable to passport photos.

Additional Information

More information is available at carthage.edu/celebration-scholars/. The following are members of the Research, Scholarship, and Creativity Committee who are eager to listen to ideas and answer questions:

Jun Wang
Kim Instenes
John Kirk
Nora Nickels
Andrew Pustina
James Ripley

The Retailing Reality of Holiday Shopping

Name: Chelsea Niemuth
Major: Finance and Marketing
Hometown: Whitewater, WI
Faculty Sponsor:
Other Sponsors:
Type of research: Senior thesis
Funding: N/A

Abstract

Over the years, the retail industry has experienced a large increase in revenue throughout the holiday season due to the marketing efforts and boom of Black Friday. However, in the last decade as trends have changed, retailers are struggling to adapt to the new holiday retailing reality. Retailers in all segments are dealing with intense competition as there are an increasing number of choices where and how consumers can shop. Consumer interest has begun to turn away from Black Friday and lean more towards online shopping and participating in other retail deal days that have emerged, including Thanksgiving. People are also starting their holiday shopping earlier than ever. Retailers are trying to find the right mix of physical and online presence as holiday retail trends change year to year. Therefore, during the holiday season, retailers need to be able to compete in their market segments by adapting new strategies to set themselves apart from competition and keep up with trends. Retailers can do this by focusing on their online sales strategies, assessing the different holiday deal days and selecting ones to focus on based on data and trends, or featuring unique products and adding value to differentiate themselves so that they don’t have to compete solely on price.

Poster file