A large card and gift shop around the corner from my newsagency started discounting Christmas cards ten days before Christmas. As many of their cards are from Hallmark I was concerned if it could hurt us. While there was a slow down, we did well as it turns out. It helped us having a large range of boxed cards this premature discounter did not have. Plus, we had somewhere to go after Christmas with discounting and they did not.
I prefer to not discount until absolutely necessary and to therefore preserve the maximum margin possible for the business. But when I do scout, I want to go hard to quit the stock.