NEW YORK (AP) — Last year, Lucila Gomez and her husband began their holiday shopping around Thanksgiving and finished it a week before Christmas, spending $750 on tablets and clothes for their three children and loved ones.
This year? Gomez is waiting until she receives her annual bonus on Friday to start – and she’s limiting her spending to $200, sticking to World Cup-themed jerseys for her 10-year-old twins and a toddler. 6 years.
“Last year, we were confident. We were like, ‘Get them what they want,'” said the 49-year-old resident of Buckeye, Arizona, who works hourly in the billing department of a healthcare company. This year we are expecting to both be paid, we want to enter the new year without owing anything.
Last-minute holiday shoppers are back in full force — and inflation is partly to blame.
For the first two years of the pandemic, many were buying earlier in the season, fearing they might not get what they wanted due to product shortages or late deliveries. They also had more money to spend thanks to government stimulus checks and childcare credits.
But this year, supply chain issues have eased and shoppers don’t worry about availability as much as higher prices on everything from rent to food, forcing them to put off buying until the last minute.
Gomez, for example, said that although she and her husband, an electrician, each got a raise, it still wasn’t enough to offset their increased expenses. In fact, she said her family moved in with her parents after their monthly rent went from $1,500 to $2,000 earlier this year. She was hoping to save for a house, but mortgage rates keep rising.
Last-minute purchases are also encouraged by a quirk of this year’s calendar, according to Brian Field, global leader of Sensormatic Solutions, which tracks in-store traffic. Christmas falling on a Sunday, consumers have to shop all week.
Retailers are counting on the rush of last-minute spending to hit their holiday sales targets after a weaker-than-expected November.
Americans cut retail spending sharply last month as the holiday shopping season begins with high prices and rising interest rates weighing on households, especially low-income families.
Retail sales fell 0.6% from October to November after a strong increase of 1.3% the previous month, the government said last week. Sales fell at furniture, electronics and home and garden stores.
Americans’ spending has remained untouched since the first spike in inflation nearly 18 months ago, but shoppers’ ability to continue spending during a period of high inflation may begin to wane. Inflation has come down Since the highest in four decades, it reached this summer but remains high, enough to undermine the purchasing power of consumers.
Still, overall holiday sales are expected to be decent, although holiday sales growth is expected to slow significantly from a year ago.
The National Retail Federation, the nation’s largest retail group, is expected to release actual results for the combined November and December period next month. The group expects holiday sales growth to slow to a range of 6% to 8%, down from a blistering 13.5% growth a year ago.
The latter part of the holiday season is critical.
On average, the 10 busiest shopping days in the United States – which include Wednesday, Thursday, Friday of this week and Monday of next week – account for about 40% of all retail traffic of the parties, according to Sensormatic. However, retailers could expect even bigger numbers this year as high gas prices force consumers to consolidate purchases and everyone converges over the next few days, Sensormatic said.
For those expecting bigger discounts just before Christmas, they may be disappointed. Retailers in general have maintained the same discounts they’ve been offering since Black Friday. However, there could be deals in areas like home and furniture, according to DataWeave, which tracks prices for hundreds of thousands of items at about three dozen retailers, including Walmart, Target and Amazon.
Recent data from DataWeave shows that average furniture prices were reduced by 23% in the second week of December, compared to 12.8% during the week of Black Friday. In furniture, the average price decreases were 17.2% compared to 11.2% for the week of Black Friday.
Krish Thyagarajan, president and chief operating officer of DataWeave, believes discounts for electronics are rising from Black Friday levels in the final days before Christmas, but price cuts for apparel are likely to remain a bit more than 20%, more generous than the average 16% reduction last year at this time.
Inflation or not, there will always be eternal procrastinators like Evelyn T. Peregrin, who last year used COVID-19 as an excuse to delay her vacation shopping since multiple parents had the virus, so she didn’t have to buy or deliver gifts until after Christmas.
Now it’s his travel expenses of about $700 eating away at his budget. The 28-year-old moved to Puerto Rico from New Jersey with her husband earlier this year, forcing him to cut vacation spending to around $150 from last year’s $250.
“I’ll probably order a few items online and end up having to go to a store at the last minute,” she said.
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