Consumers Agree—The Holiday Season Commences After Thanksgiving, Not Halloween

It’s still a toss-up whether the holiday season truly begins after Thanksgiving or following Halloween, according to a recent JLL study.

More than two-thirds of 2,800 shoppers surveyed agree holiday shopping starts following Thanksgiving, while the majority of the 300 retail tenants JLL surveyed believe the season begins after Halloween. Whenever it starts, one thing is for sure—shoppers are expected to exceed their 2015 spending by 4%, and more than a third of shoppers are planning to spend more than $750 each on gifts this year.

JLL director of retail research James Cook tells Bisnow the health of the economy is encouraging holiday spending, though he says there is a competiting factor that could negatively impact spending.

“On the one hand, the economy, and GDP in general, has been slowly growing quarter after quarter, which should mean holiday spending should be getting better and better every year,” James says. “At the same time, with the political season upon us, there’s so much negative rhetoric in the air from both sides that you can forgive people for thinking that things are much worse than they are.”

Where They Like To Shop

JLL’s survey discovered there’s a big generational divide in where consumers prefer to shop for the holidays. JLL found Millennials and Gen-Xers prefer to shop more online and at discount department stores, while Baby Boomers and those over 70 are more likely to turn to department and apparel stores first.

“One of the bigger differences is that the over-70s and Boomers did not have online shopping in their top three choices,” James tells us. “We asked people what influenced their shopping, and Boomers and over-70s said quality is more important, while Millennials and Gen-X said low prices are most important.”