The holiday season is quickly approaching, a time for joy, traditions and celebrations, but it’s also one of the busiest and most pressure-filled moments of the year for shoppers. From finding the perfect gifts, to stocking up on groceries for festive meals, consumers are juggling rising costs, preparing for 2025 tariff impacts, item shortages, and overall uncertainty. This year, the usual holiday hustle is layered with new challenges. So, we turned to the Shopkick community to understand how people are preparing for their holiday plans, what’s changing in their shopping behaviors, and how they are approaching theirs plans this year.

We launched a nationwide survey to more than 8,000 consumers in the U.S, which revealed nearly 70% of holiday shoppers are starting earlier than ever before, citing a combination of summer deals, anticipated price hikes, and concerns over inventory. In addition, more than half of Americans say they are changing their holiday shopping plans due to price increases. This is a big opportunity for brands to create trust, loyalty and a sense of community with their consumers. We also found that economic pressures are fundamentally reshaping how much consumers plan to spend, and on what: more than a third say they will be buying fewer gifts this year, while over 80% of shoppers have already experienced or expect higher prices on popular gift categories like clothing, toys, home furnishings, and beauty products.

Key Findings:

• Rising Costs Reshape Spending: Over half of Americans (say they are changing their holiday shopping plans due to price increases. Of that group, more than 40% are seeking out more sales than in past years.
• Empty Shelves, Half-Full Carts: Nearly 60% of consumers have experienced shortages or more out-of-stock products than in previous years.
• Sticker Shock Season: More than 80% of shoppers have already noticed or expect higher prices on gifts like clothing, toys, home furnishings, and beauty products.

• Tight Belts, Shorter Lists: Nearly 30% of consumers expect to spend less this holiday season compared to last year, and of those cutting back, almost 70% plan to spend up to $200 less than they did in 2024.
• Big Box or Bust: When it comes to in-store foot traffic, big-box retailers are the clear winners, with 85% of respondents saying they plan to visit Walmart, Target, and similar stores to shop in-person. Off-price retailers like TJ Maxx and Marshalls and club stores like Costco and Sam’s Club are close second and third destinations. Department stores, standalone retailers, drug stores, grocery or sporting goods stores should expect to take a bigger hit in holiday shopper foot traffic this year.

For brands, these insights predict a holiday season that is both full of opportunity and preparing for challenges. Rising prices and ongoing shortages are pushing consumers to make tougher choices, and at the same time, shoppers are more promotion-driven than ever, with a majority hunting for deals earlier in the year to outpace tariffs and price hikes. This means brands must adapt their holiday strategies to meet shoppers where they are, leaning into value messaging, prioritizing supply chain reliability, and ensuring their presence on the channels and in the retailers consumers trust most, especially promoting their products on engagement platforms like Shopkick.

As the winter holidays mark the biggest shopping season of the year. Each year, holiday shopping seems to creep up earlier and earlier, but this year's accelerated timeline and budget-conscious behavior signal a fundamental shift in consumer patterns that could reshape retail strategies moving forward with a potential ripple effect across the economy.