2019 Holiday Shopping Season Kicks-Off Early

By Dennis Kaiser

Retailers are already beginning to prepare for the 2019 Holiday shopping season, with consumers close behind them. In fact, roughly one third of consumers indicated that they will start their holiday shopping before Thanksgiving this year – with some consumers indicating they’re already done with their holiday shopping. This year a higher number of shoppers indicated that they’ll start their shopping on Thanksgiving Day – 5.1% versus 3.4% in 2018, according to research by JLL. Interestingly, higher income shoppers (those earning over $75,000) will start before Thanksgiving.

JLL Retail’s Greg Maloney says, “This year we are continuing to see the merging of retail channels with 68.7% of responses showing that consumers will shop at a retailer with a physical presence – whether that’s in-store, online, or picking up in-store after an online purchase. While JLL is forecasting that sales will increase 4.5 to 5%, Maloney believes “that we are likely to be on the high-end of that forecast – baring a substantial setback in the economy. By in large, the average consumer is not going to be overly concerned by trade discussions until they actually manifest in higher prices or slower economic growth. The consumer has continuously buoyed the economy and I don’t expect that to change without some sort of significant setback.”

Research by JLL found that overall consumer budgets remained roughly the same compared to last year with 43.3% of consumers indicating that they will spend more than $500 on gifts this year – compared to 44.4% in 2018. Seniors over the age of 65 planned to spend the most out of the surveyed demographics with 23% budgeting more than $1,000 on gifts, in order to make sure they take care of every item on their grandchildren’s wish list. Gen Zers on the other hand budgeted the least with 72.3% indicating they planned to spend less than $500.

Consumers top five retailers where they planned to do their holiday shopping are Amazon (38.1%), Walmart (36.2%), Target (29.6%), Kohl’s (10.1%) and Macy’s (8%). Interestingly, while the top three remained the same across all shoppers, there were some notable differences in the rankings when looking at consumer’s holiday budgets. For example, those with higher budgets (greater than $500) were more likely to include retailers like Macy’s, Best Buy and Nordstrom among their top 10, while those with more modest budgets indicated that they plan to shop at Kohl’s.

Another emerging trend JLL found was that consumers indicated that they planned to use multiple channels to cross all the items off their holiday lists. Interestingly, this year more than half of the shoppers surveyed (52%) indicated that they will buy in-store compared to 42.3% who indicated that they will buy from an internet only retailer. A little over a quarter of shoppers (25.3%) will make a purchase from a physical retailer’s website, while 23.5% indicated they would order online and pick up in store. This option was particularly popular among Gen Z shoppers as 29.9 percent indicated they would take advantage of buy online, pick up in store or “BOPIS” services. Providing BOPIS services at their stores is a major benefit to retailers as other studies have shown that approximately 85.0 percent of shoppers who stop by a store to pick up a purchase end up buying other products.

JLL Retail’s James Cook says, “This year has really shown that the trend of omnichannel retailing is here to stay. Convenience is a driving factor, and it’s essential for retailers to provide that convenience to consumers by fully blending their channels and optimizing their supply chains in order to provide the best holiday shopping experience for consumers.”

Lastly, JLL found that mobile phones will also play a major role in the shopping experience, with many customers becoming more comfortable using their phones in a wide range of retail scenarios. For instance, while fewer shoppers will use their phones for online ordering compared to last year (46.8% vs. 50.3%), more shoppers indicated they will use their phones for reading product reviews, checking store inventory, and making in-store payments. While men are more likely to use their phones overall, 14.2% of women preferred to use their phone to pay in-store. Among the age demographics, 16.5% of millennial shoppers planned to use their phone to make mobile payments.

For comments, questions or concerns, please contact Dennis Kaiser