US Holiday Shoppers Spend More on Smaller Items

As Black Friday approaches, our US Thematic and Equity Strategist Michelle Weaver explains why some US consumers will increase their spending and which industries could benefit.

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Michelle Weaver: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michelle Weaver, US Thematic and Equity Strategist. The holiday season is just around the corner, and today I'll be discussing what US consumers are planning for this year's holiday shopping.

It's Monday, November 25th at 10am in New York.

It's that time of year when New York City goes from skyscrapers to sky high trees. So, cue the holiday music, holiday shopping season is here. My colleagues Jim Egan, Arunima Sinha, and Heather Berger recently came on this show to discuss the current state of the US Consumer. Today, I want to expand a little bit on their analysis by looking specifically at how holiday shopping could fare this year.

Overall, consumer spending trends have been robust year to date, which does bode well for holiday spending. We recently ran a proprietary survey of around 2000 US Consumers that showed a more positive outlook for holiday shopping this year versus in 2023 and 2022. Not surprisingly, though, higher income households – who've really been the key drivers of aggregate consumer spending – are likely to drive the spending this holiday season as well.

Overall, we expect to see increased holiday budgets this year. Our survey found that 37 percent of US consumers are planning to keep their holiday budgets roughly the same as last year. Around 35 percent are expecting to spend more and 22 percent are expecting to spend less. So, this yields a net gain of around +13 percent. It's not off to the races, though, and consumers will continue to be selective on where they're planning to allocate their dollars.

Discounts and promotions are going to have an impact on shoppers. And in fact, if retailers don't offer discounts, 44 percent of shoppers say they may pull back or trade down somewhat, and another quarter of purchasers say they'll scale back substantially. Only about a quarter of people would go ahead with all the planned purchases if there were no discounts or promotions.

We also asked questions in our survey looking at the categories shoppers are planning to make purchases in. We looked at the net difference between the percent of consumers expecting to spend more and the percent expecting to spend less. And the lowest net spending intentions are reported for big ticket categories like sports equipment, home and kitchen, and electronics. And then the results were more positive for apparel and toys, which are cheaper items.

Let's dive in now to some of the specifics around consumer facing industries. Within airlines, we're expecting a strong holiday season for air travel based on encouraging TSA data. This lines up with continued strong demand for travel and live experiences.

Within durable goods, which are the kind of things you might find at a big box store or a furniture store, spending has slowed this year, but the backdrop is normalizing, which could create a more favorable setup this holiday season. E-commerce, though, on the other hand, has been pressured recently, and the weakness has impacted discretionary goods, while outsized growth has come from non-discretionary categories like groceries and everyday essentials.

The shorter holiday shopping season may also have an impact on e-commerce. This year, there are only 27 days between Black Friday and Christmas, which is the shortest that range could possibly be. So, this could affect e-commerce players with longer average delivery times. We're cautious on consumer electronic sales this holiday season. Consumer hardware spending intentions remain negative as we near the holiday season. And then finally for toys, leisure products, and services, we're cautiously optimistic that the holiday season could prove better than feared.

So, all in all, the holidays are looking reasonably bright for many businesses, especially those with more exposure to the high-end consumer; but like consumers, we think that the results will vary by industry and by company.

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