While 58% of consumers are planning to spend approximately the same amount of money during peak season this year as they did in 2022, many are still worried about the rising cost of goods, according to new research from Kenco.
“Armed with this knowledge, retailers should consider marketing additional sales and creating more shopping holidays to not only spread out consumer spending, but also flatten the curve of peak season logistics and its respective labor challenges,” says Jason Minghini, SVP of operations at Kenco. “By incentivizing consumers to shop on additional days, retailers can also avoid potential shipping delays caused by high order volumes.”
Key takeaways:
- As inflation pushes up the price of consumer goods, more than half (54%) of respondents worry they will not be able to afford gifts.
- To counteract, consumers will search for online and in-store deals – 65% of respondents plan to take advantage of a shopping holiday. Specifically, 59% say they will shop on Black Friday and 53% will seek deals on Cyber Monday, while 44% have already taken advantage of goods sold on Prime Day. Additionally, more than one-third (35%) will be taking advantage of post-holiday sales.
- Most consumers (72%) would opt for slower shipping if it meant their packages arrived for free. Nearly three-quarters (74%) will take slower shipping speeds if provided an incentive such as saving on an order (72%), a gift card or store credit (64%) or a free upgrade to faster shipping on a future purchase (25%).
- Although supply chain kinks have significantly improved over the last three years and 52% of respondents show no supply chain concerns, 60% of consumers still worry about product availability for this year. In fact, 42% of consumers have already started their peak season shopping to get ahead of these concerns.
“With many retailers struggling with inventory surpluses, there is an opportunity here to target these early shoppers,” says Dave Hauptman, chief commercial officer at Kenco. “Retailers can pull out and promote their inventory overstock earlier, reducing the amount of products in their warehouses and stores and also potentially reducing order spikes on more traditional shopping holidays.”
