Early holiday shopping trends show deal-focused consumers this season
This holiday season, cautious shoppers are looking for deals before they load up their cart.
From Nov. 1 to Nov. 20, online shoppers have spent $63.2 billion, up 5% from last year, according to an e-commerce report from Adobe Analytics. For 17 of those days, customers spent over $3 billion per day, which is higher than last year, where that level of spending was seen in 13 out of 20 days.
This comes as consumers are under pressure from headwinds like higher interest rates, the return of student loan payments, credit card debt, and dwindling savings. As people become more cautious with their money, heavy promotions and shopping earlier seem to do the trick.
So far this month, electronics have been discounted 24% from their list price, while other deeply discounted categories include toys (23%), apparel (21%), televisions (19%), appliances (17%), sporting goods (15%), and furniture (13%).
As a result, online sales for toys are up 76% compared to October; sales for appliances and apparel are up 30% and 22%, respectively.
The best deals may be yet to come though.
Televisions are best to shop on Black Friday, toys and apparel on Sunday, and electronics and furniture on Cyber Monday. Adobe predicts Cyber Week, or as some call it the Cyber Five, the five-day period between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, will see $37.2 billion dollars in online spending, roughly 17% of the total holiday season.
Read more: 6 ways to save money on your Black Friday shopping list
Corporate America has taken notice of the change in climate, after two years of price hikes and well-funded shoppers.
Retailers like Target (TGT) and Best Buy (BBY) kicked off Black Friday type deals in October, while Walmart (WMT) officially kicked off the season on Nov. 8.
"Consumers are very deal focused and making spend trade-offs right for their budget," said Best Buy CEO Corie Barry on a call with investors following the company's third quarter results. Best Buy, which saw sales drop off in Q3, is managing its promotional plan and plans to be "price competitive," she added.
Retail chains set modest expectations for the holiday season though. On Tuesday, American Eagle (AEO) said it believes revenue will increase high single digits in Q4 and Abercrombie and Fitch (ANF) said it expects sales to increase low double digits next quarter.
Wall Street was disappointed in both outlooks, sending shares lower throughout Tuesday's trading session.
On the bright side, companies who have invested in mobile shopping are seeing the payoff. Nearly half of online orders happened on mobile apps so far this month, with revenue coming in $30.8 billion, up more than 12% compared to last year.
From November to December, mobile spending is expected to reach $113 billion dollars total, up nearly 14% year over year.
Not all pandemic-era shopping trends are sticking though. Curbside pickup, which made up of 19.4% of orders last year, dropped to 17.4% as in-person shopping returned. Adobe expects that the number could shift as consumers look to pick up gifts in a pinch and avoid shipping costs closer to the holidays.
As a sign of the times, consumers are opting for help to finance this holiday.
In November, shoppers using buy now, pay later payment methods are up 14.5% compared to last year, accounting for $4.9 billion in online spending so far.
Read more: Are holiday loans a good idea? Here are some options.
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Brooke DiPalma is a senior reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter at @BrookeDiPalma or email her at bdipalma@yahoofinance.com.
