Holiday creep starts even earlier this year, with shorter selling window for retailers

Get ready for holiday merchandise to hit store shelves earlier than usual this year, and for retailers to roll out seasonal promotions well before temperatures drop. Discounted pricing once reserved for Black Friday and Cyber Monday is now going into effect in early October. 

"Holiday creep," the term for when retailers start selling holiday-themed items before the traditional start of the season, is a phenomenon that's been at play for years, as retailers try to get a jump-start on sales. 

This year, given that the window between Thanksgiving and Christmas is almost one week shorter compared with last, stores will have even less time to clear merchandise from shelves and capture consumers' dollars. To make up for that time, they're hosting holiday sales events as early as the beginning of October, before the leaves have even started to fall in many places.