Circular Inspiration

It's not often that a retailer's weekly sale circular inspires a column, but the recent Kmart circular gave me pause. And quick on its heels was the insert a few days later in The New York Times for what is now Macy's East.

How this relates to the world of home textiles will become evident if you read on.

Kmart, one of the larger retail purveyors of home textiles product, sends out a weekly circular. The one weekend before last had a major offering of Christmas decorations — yes Christmas, even as the last ghosts of Halloween were being relegated to the attic!

In it were this year's contributions to high décor for outdoor living — the giant inflatables resembling Santa and assorted artistic offerings. I think they figure by now everyone has the lighted icicles.

And this year, it seems, as usual, bigger definitely is better. Some of the stuff had dimensions that would challenge the second floor height of most homes.

By now, I bet many of you are wondering how this relates to home textiles.

The newest member of the outdoor decorating community is a giant globe holding several holiday figures and actually able to create snow within the globe.

Here's how it relates to home textiles. The snowy globe is a cool $70-something bucks, the others are in the mid-$20 and up. Add for what could be used on an average lawn, you're looking at a couple of hundred dollars — minimum.

In the Macy's circular, a bed-in-a-bag showed up with the comforter, bedskirt, shams, and two sets of sheets — all for $59.99

The Kmart home textiles stuff in the same circular as Santa and friends ranges from low to lowest in any category.

Now guess who's going to win? The kids pulling at mom's pantleg saying, “I want, I want,” or the new piece of bed covering or bath ensemble. It doesn't take rocket science to figure it out.

Somehow, the folks in the home textiles world have to figure a way to outfox Santa and the myriad distractions to get people to think beyond price.