Whether dangling Black Friday-style discounts while folks are still in their summer beach rentals or serving up pumpkin-flavored lattes before the kids are back in school, retailers have succeeded in an ever earlier start to the holiday selling season.
And shoppers seem to like it.
One in seven Americans snap up holiday gifts before the swimsuits from that last Labor Day dip in the pool were even hung out to dry, one new survey has found.
Parents were twice as likely as those without kids to get a jump on holiday purchases, while 2 percent of the 1,000 US consumers surveyed had already completed their holiday shopping for 2015. Lower-income shoppers surveyed by CreditCards.com were more likely to complete their purchases before Dec. 1.
Shopping early is a good idea, said Matt Schulz, senior industry analyst at CreditCards.com. “You can comparison-shop and take advantage of layaway to make big purchases without a credit card.”
This is the first year CreditCards.com undertook the survey, and it’s unclear when these shoppers made holiday gift purchases in previous years.
Any shoppers who started early this year may have responded to two new marketing blitzes. Boasting about more deals than Black Friday, Amazon kicked off its first Amazon Prime Day on July 15, offering steep discounts for members of its Prime club, which has a $99 annual fee. On Sept. 4, known to geeks across America as “Force Friday,” the juggernaut of toys, gadgets and other merchandise tied to “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” landed at Walmart, Amazon and other stores. The film opens on Dec. 18.
As merchants gear up for the crucial holiday season, consumer spending has shown moderate growth through the end of August.
Looking ahead, experts cautioned that many shoppers won’t make purchases until the last minute, and stock market gyrations could dampen spending.
“Financial markets continue to be volatile/weak,” said Joshua Shapiro, chief US economist at MFR Inc. “If that happens [at the holidays], you need to watch out at the upper end, which has been driving spending growth.”
