Who Really Needs Christmas in Retail?

Years of disruption — from Amazon, slowing foot traffic, Millennials, Instagram, overburdened balance sheets and more — have some retailers hoping for a little more for Christmas this year.  The holiday season has long been make-or-break in retail, with weaker players hoping to pick up enough momentum or sales to inject new life into their businesses in the New Year. In extreme cases, companies that have debt coming due and are losing the support of vendors face the possibility of bankruptcy if Christmas shoppers don’t come to their stores.  Joel Rampoldt, managing director in AlixPartners’ retail practice, said companies in trouble headed into the holiday season have had to walk a very fine line as they bought and planned what would go into their stores. “You can’t win by just going very cautious,” Rampoldt said. “You have to have some belief behind what you think is going to sell, what’s going to be important, what’s going to be on trend. And then you have to buy behind that with courage and say, ‘This is what we believe and we’re going to go for it.’” Once they’ve made their bets on the art side of the equation, they have to get the science right and

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