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Merrick, NY—While luxury jewelers were practically the only happy retailers in a very dim holiday season, they too recognize that consumers’ buying habits are shifting in ways that may actually be healthier for business in the long term. In short, many people are starting to buy less at Christmas but more throughout the year. It will always be a major gift-giving occasion--and of course an extremely important religious observance--but some retailers think it's time to lessen its commercial importance.

The term “Black Friday” derived from the tradition that retailers’ annual balance sheets finally tipped into the black from red on the day after Thanksgiving, driven by crowds of holiday shoppers kicking off their season’s spending. The holiday season has traditionally accounted for anywhere from 30% to as much as 50% of a prestige jeweler’s annual sales.

But with the advent of online and mobile shopping, that’s changing, and the shift is already evident. In both the 2012 and 2011 Centurion Holiday Sales Success Index, there were a number of respondents who said their holiday season business was down from previous years, but their total business for the year was up. In the words of one respondent this year, “Christmas is not what it used to be. It used to be 30% of the year; now it’s only 18%-20%.”

In a post-season analysis in Women’s Wear Daily, Lou Amendola, executive vice president of merchandising for traditional upscale menswear maker Brooks Brothers told the paper, “It’s time to rethink Christmas. The whole holiday and what families do and how they spend their money seems to be changing. It’s time for everyone to make adjustments.” Retailers need to re-evaluate the emphasis they put on the shopping period between Thanksgiving and Christmas, thinking that’s when all their profits are made, he said. “People today shop all year long on the Internet and don’t need to wait till Christmas anymore. They’re just not shopping like they used to.”

It could, however, be the best news retailers have had in a long time. On one hand, if consumers are spreading out their shopping over the entire year, retailers also will have to amp up creative marketing efforts earlier--but on the other, their yearly balance sheets won’t be as vulnerable to a less-than-stellar holiday.

There’s no doubt that the Internet has altered the retail landscape. Apart from price competition, the convenience of armchair shopping is not lost on consumers. Digital analytics firm Comscore, Reston, VA, said that in the period from November 1 to December 23, 2012, holiday season e-commerce had increased by 16% over the same period in 2011.

Even if consumers don’t actually make the purchase online, they do their research there, resulting in more targeted trips to brick-and-mortar stores and bringing down total foot traffic, said the article. It cited figures from Shelley Kohan of San Jose, CA-based RetailNext, who told WWD that as a result of having done online research first, many shoppers were visiting two or three stores this season, instead of the previous four or five. Shoppers may appreciate having to do less legwork, but retailers don’t. They now have to find ways to boost those add-on impulse purchases online that used to happen in the store, and they also have to up the ante to make sure that theirs is one of the now-fewer stores the shopper is motivated to visit.

Chicago-based Shopper Trak, which measures foot traffic in retail stores, confirms this trend. Its research showed that while foot traffic did increase week over week this year—with a huge surge in the final days before Christmas—overall, the figures were lower than last year. As of December 19, it had revised its sales growth forecast for the season from 3.3% to 2.5%. Its final figures for the season will be released January 8; too late for this article.

According to another analytics firm, San Jose-based RetailNext, the top five foot traffic days of the 2012 season were, in descending order: Friday, November 23 (Black Friday); Saturday, December 22; Saturday, December 15; Sunday, December 23; and Friday, December 21. But the top five sales days were: December 22, November 23, December 21, December 15, and December 20 (a Thursday).