Is The Holiday Shopping Season Underway Already?

It seems like holiday happenings and are starting earlier and earlier every year. Seems like it anyway.

"Retailers are starting their marketing and promotion campaigns earlier than ever,” says Matt Shay, CEO of the National Retail Federation. "And they [retailers] are trying to create more opportunities for consumers.”

And Shay says consumers are taking advantage of an early start to the holiday shopping season.

“Consumers begin their shopping earlier. We know retailers are meeting those expectations, delivering values and promotions and deals earlier than ever.”

Which studies show is just what holiday shoppers this year are looking for. 

“And we expect that consumers will continue to be more, price, conscious and pragmatic in their spending decisions, looking for discounts, lower prices,” Shay added.  “And generally speaking, better value on the pricing side for holiday related goods.

But Shay says this does not mean we shoppers are planning on cutting back on spending for the holidays. Consumer surveys show quite the opposite. Now, he said his group considers the holiday shopping season to run November 1st through December 31st.

“For that period this year, overall, our forecast for holiday sales is that we will experience growth. Between 2 ½%-3 ½% above last year's holiday season, that works out to between $980-$990 billion in sales compared to last year, $955 billion total holiday spending in 2023.” 

So again, shoppers this coming season are expected to spend up to 3.5% more than last year, but the rate of growth was a little bit bigger last season at 3.9%. Shay says there could be several reasons for the smaller than expected rate of growth this season. One of them could be worries about inflation, although over the last three months inflation has been practically nil.

“And even for food is only up in several categories, very modestly, half a percent, 1%,” Shay said.

Shay added that shoppers are expected to spend generally up to 3 ½% more for holiday items this year. Online sales of those items continue to grow. They could be up 8 or 9% compared to a year ago.

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