Consumers Reveal Altered Festive Spending Plans

Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - 13:07 by David Aiken

The impact of the ongoing pandemic will continue to be felt by the retail market for the rest of the year, with the latest report from Rakuten Advertising suggesting that consumers will change their habits in the run-up to Christmas this year in a few key ways.

Internet Retailing reports that 40 per cent of respondents to the report said that their household income had taken a hit due to COVID-19, yet 42 per cent of people from the UK are aiming to splash just as much cash on the festive season as they did in 2019.

The majority of those questioned said that they would be waiting to take advantage of Black Friday offers in order to manage the costs of Christmas, meaning that there will also be a significant spike in the number of people ordering presents via safe shopping online in late November.

Analysts are anticipating that Amazon’s own Prime Day event, which is set to take place at some point in the autumn, will be another big stimulus for festive spending. So while shoppers may be intending to invest just as much in the winter celebrations this year, they will be hoping to make their money go further by participating in short-term sales rather than spreading this out over a longer period.

This will no doubt prove to be a challenge for some retailers, as there will be steeper peaks and troughs in demand in the final months of the year. Meanwhile, it looks like it will be another boom period for Amazon, coming hot on the heels of the news that founder Jeff Bezos saw his net work increase by $13 billion in a single day earlier this week, demonstrating the dominance of the brand that he still stewards.