Holiday Creep is the retail phenomenon where retailers market holidays earlier and earlier in order to maximize their sales of Christmas trees or chocolate eggs. We all know Christmas Creep and Easter Creep, but is back-to-school creep a thing? How early is too early to start getting ready for the next school year?

Reader Karl lives in Canada, but the school year in his area is about the same as much of the United States: it begins after Labo(u)r Day. He was surprised to see big displays at Sears earlier this week urging customers to start their back-to-school shopping, since the kids had been out of school for maybe a week at that point.

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