joining us out to discuss is Michael Brown, his
partner and America's retail leader at kearney. So welcome
Michael holiday spirit and spending seems to be alive?
So how are shoppers adjusting their spending strategies in response
? Today's inflation? Good morning Michelle and thank you
for having me. You know, the consumer has
always been resilient and they're resilient this year too.
They're out in force today shopping. They're looking for
bargains. They're looking for treasures that they can really
give to their loved ones as gifts and they're finding
the discounting out there. They're also pursuing alternative channels
off price has just been great this year. And
the consumers are finding those things that they're happy about
giving their family and friends for christmas. Now,
retailers started rolling out black friday deals early. You
think that move was enough to entice shoppers and will
we continue to see this to be a trend?
Yes. It seems like it's been black friday since
Halloween and that's the second year that we've seen this
. But we know the consumer likes to get ramped
up on their shopping, but they're ready to now
do it in force. So I think we've got
retailers getting a little bit of money in the bank
right now, but the bulk of the shopping is
still yet to be done over the next month Now
. Last month's retail sales, they beat expectations.
They were up about 1.3% in October but this month
? Consumer sentiment. It actually fell. So why
do you think this isn't stopping shoppers at this time
from hitting stores. It's just the time of year
that people want to get out there. They want
to have the gifts under the tree for the family
members that they love now. We think this is
gonna slow consumer spending next year, but it's not
going to have an effect on this holiday. We're
forecasting a very strong holiday this year, really driven
by consumers taking this last, you know, hurrah
before they have to tighten the belt next year.
Now, tech always seems to have the best deals
. And are there any deals that are standing out
to you and could today really help the tech sector
overall, there are a lot of great deals in
tech right now from TVs to uh, airpods that
are being blasted all over the media today. So
the consumer can find from the big to the small
pieces of electronics that they want to be able to
give in their, in their gifts. Now,
according to Deloitte's Holiday survey, there are lots of
consumers who are counting on credit to stretch their holiday
budgets now. Is that a smart move? Considering
that Savers are the big winners here during inflation.
It is, but you know, the holiday,
this is the time when people want to splurge and
I think a little bit of credit coming through the
holiday is not going to hurt most of the consumers
now, it's a matter of how quickly they can
pay that off and how readily available they are to
be able to cut back a little bit next year
to offset what they send now here in the holidays
. We see though that there's still gonna be opportune
unity next year for discounts and we see channels really
just continuing to offer consumers more and more deals to
be able to entice them to come to the store
and shop. Now. According to the National Retail
Federation, online sales are expected to increase this year
. So do you feel that overall cyber monday will
do better this year compared to what we saw during
the pandemic when everyone was staying at home? Yeah
, I think cyber we think that the online sales
are actually going to slow a bit. The growth
will be less than it's been. We see consumers
wanting to get out to the stores again, you
know, shopper tainment is in vogue again, they
want to go out there, walk the stores,
touch feel and really just enjoy that day out at
the mall. So we thing that actually online sales
growth will slow going into next year as again,
consumers look for ways to find bargains as well as
reduce some of the cost of acquisition and things such
as grocery where they have to pay for delivery sometimes
. Now that's thanks to Michael Brown, he's a
partner in America's retail leader at kearney, get some
of those black friday deals