This morning when I sat down at my desk, I looked over at my calendar and had one of those sharp jolts to the system that make you sit back and think: I can’t believe it is July already.

With everything that is happening at DHgate – all the new people coming on board, all of the cool stuff we’ve been adding to the service, and just the sheer growth in the number of buyers and sellers worldwide – the first half of the year felt like about three weeks.

July makes me think about a lot of things: picnics, fireworks, beaches, and Christmas.

That’s right: Christmas.

I know what you’re probably thinking: “please, Diane, the stores already start putting up decorations and playing Christmas music in September: can’t we have our summer before we start thinking about all of that?”

The answer to that of course, is “no.” And the reason is because this Christmas is probably going to be your biggest holiday season ever.

There are a couple of reasons for that, so let me explain.

The first reason is inventory – not yours, but the inventory of the big retailers. Most of the retailers need to place their orders for the Christmas season in February or March in order to ensure that the merchandise would be ready to ship on time, that they could use the least expensive (i.e., slowest) shipping options available, and that they could have the goods in the stores in time for a long selling season starting in around October.

I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few months talking to factory owners, and while I can’t claim to have definitive data, it is clear that when the big stores were placing their orders in late winter/early spring, they didn’t have much confidence in the economy. Orders are way, way down, and most stores have clearly committed themselves to a conservative Christmas in order to conserve cash and avoid getting stuck with inventory at the end.

I can tell you right away what this means: with all of that excess capacity, YOU will have access this year to an unprecedented range of products at prices that a year ago would have been too low to imagine.

Which brings us to the second reason: price. Or, more exactly, a consumer who is more price sensitive this year than he or she has been for decades. You don’t need to be an economist to know that people are really going to be bargain hunting this year. That means not only will they be scouring the ads of the “everyday low price” retailers, but also looking for special deals in places they might not ordinarily go for their Christmas shopping. With more time and money, consumers are more likely to not only be shopping around for a better deal, but for a new kind of shopping experience, one that is more appropriate to our times.

In other words, this Christmas is our chance to get people out to start coming to YOU, and make buying from you a part of their Christmas tradition and their normal buying habits.

You put it all together, and it adds up to the single best opportunity for small retailers and wholesalers since the invention of the Internet.

Keep me posted and let me know how this is working.

Stay in touch,

Diane