We have entered the second Holiday shopping season while in the COVID pandemic, and with record-high inflation. How will that affect your holiday shopping? LSU Marketing Professor Dan Rice says store shelves could look a bit sparse, with supply chain issues. He feels online shopping will be huge again this year but says, even so, it pays to get started now.
“The number of people that buy early and get it shipped well in advance and plan ahead will tend to reduce the amount of strain that’s going to put on trying to ship things on the last moment and get things into the store,” said Rice.
Merchants started their Holiday shopping deals earlier than normal this year, with some advertising Black Friday specials as early as Halloween. Rice says inflation has driven the cost of everything up, so expect the dollars spent to increase accordingly for merchants.
“Just because you’re not selling quite as much, you still have a chance of actually increasing the overall spend due to the prices, we are seeing that across the board,” said Rice.
Rice says the Labor Department has shown price increases over the last year of 13% for TVs, furniture 11% and appliances 7%.
He says holiday shoppers looking for great deals can still find them, but it may take a little research to find them.
“Like it’s true with any of these sales, you have to know what your baseline is and know what you are getting into,” said Rice.
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