Faith at Christmas

The Wall Street Journal reporter had observed the New York street scene, heard the buzz about Barneys'Cher windows, seen the Christmas celebrants queue up for Saks'fabulous St. Petersburg images and Macy's “Miracle on 34th Street.”

“It's pretty impressive,” she noted. “How much does it drive sales?”

“Funny thing is,” I said, “nobody really knows.”

You could see how a Wall Street Journal writer would find this astounding. In the business world, at a time of hugely publicized woes – especially in the retail sector – how could retailers spend maybe six figures and not measure the return on that investment?

Surely, she said, I was wrong. Surely there must be a study somewhere that determines how all those Santas and elves and mechanical reindeer directly improve sales.

Nope, I insisted. As part of this great unmeasured industry of ours, its most extravagant and public effort is completely unevaluated.

“Why do they do it, then?” she persisted.

“Partly faith,” I said. Retailers just instinctively intuit that creating a holiday mood is necessary to driving holiday sales.

“Partly fear.” They worry that not having a holiday extravaganza will force shoppers across the street or down the block, to the stores that do put them in the mood.

“Partly strategy.” Getting shoppers to slow down as they pass your store is the critical first step in the entire retail process. (David Hoey of Bergdorf Goodman once told me that store windows have three seconds to grab a shopper's attention before she passes by.)

“And partly civic obligation,” I concluded. (“It's our gift to the city,” Barneys'Simon Doonan once observed.)

The Wall Street Journal must have thought all this a little soft-headed, because she signed off quickly thereafter with an abrupt “thanks for your time.” And, in the next week or so, I had almost identical conversations with reporters from CNBC, CNN and newspapers in Portland, Ore., and Sacramento, Calif.

It made me think that maybe I was wrong, maybe there is a conversion wheel that calculates the proportionate benefits of holiday displays. But Steven Wilburn, national director of stores for Saks Fifth Avenue, assured me that no, it's almost entirely a faith-based initiative. “It's just something we know we have to do,” he said.

It's frustrating that retailers don't work harder to figure out how much holiday windows – or new store layout or merchandising display or open-sell prerogative – boost sales. In The Flying 90s, it often didn't seem to matter. But The New Millenium has brought anguish and concern.

Maybe, though, The New Millenium has also brought The New Technology. Maybe a Wall Street Journal reporter 10 years from now will learn that sensors and smart check-out devices determine that of every 100 people passing Macy's window during Christmas 2012, 30 made purchases directly the result of the holiday windows, purchases they wouldn't have otherwise made.

Obviously, so many other things go into the buying decision – weather, economy, location, prices, the merchandise – but maybe technology will finally find a way to measure the exact value of great Christmas windows and astounding in-store displays.

Or maybe not. Maybe the holidays will always be, as they should be, about faith.