Oh how the holiday retail landscape has changed over the past decade. It used to be that folks would leisurely enjoy their Thanksgiving feast, sleep off said feast, then line up on “Black Friday” at the crack of dawn to get in on the big deals they were after. While the Friday after Thanksgiving is still the official start of the holiday shopping season, things have certainly changed. Thanksgiving is no longer off limits – many retailers are open. In fact, consumers can shop at stores or online before the Thanksgiving meal has been cleared from the table.

While Black Friday still holds its own as the most significant shopping holiday on the calendar, there are now a multitude of shopping holidays competing for attention. Between Black Friday, Small Business Saturday (we on the Porch always encourage shopping small and shopping local), Cyber Monday, Free Shipping Day and Super Saturday (the last Saturday before Christmas), it’s hard to know when the best time to do your holiday shopping is. These “holidays” were created to boost holiday sales and lure us in with the promise to save big on every item on our lists.

Here are some numbers to put things into perspective:

• The National Retail Federation expects holiday retail sales in November and December — excluding automobiles, gasoline and restaurants — to increase between 4.3 and 4.8 percent over 2017. Total spending is expected to range from $717.45 billion to $720.89 billion.
• According to NRF, for some retailers, the holiday season can represent as much as 30 percent of annual sales with hobby, toy and game stores reporting the highest percentage, accounting for approximately 30.1 percent of their sales during the 2017 holiday season. Overall, last year holiday sales represented nearly 20 percent of total retail industry sales.

Do you jump right in after Thanksgiving and knock out everything on your list? Or are you one of the 40% that begins holiday shopping before Halloween? Do you hold out for possibly better deals with the chance of not getting what you want? Or do you usually procrastinate and hope for the best? It takes all kinds!

The good news this year is that the gap between Thanksgiving and Christmas is long – 32 days whereas next year will only be 26 (although Hanukkah is early this year). That means retailers have more time to lure us in and those who usually wait to shop, well, you have more time to wait.

The forecast for holiday sales is good this year, but we’ll have to wait a few more weeks to see how the shopping season plays out. In the meantime, I’ve got some shopping to do!

These days it seems it’s hard to know when the best time to do your holiday shopping is between Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Free Shipping Day and Super Saturday, which are all made up days created to boost holiday sales.

Do you jump right in after Thanksgiving and knock out everything on your list? Or do you hold out for possibly better deals with the chance of not getting what you want? Or are you like me this year and got a really late start and are hoping for the best?

The National Retail Federation anticipates holiday sales this year will increase 4.1% over last year. Holiday retail sales reports have been very mixed this year. It started with a disappointing Black Friday, which is typically the busiest shopping day of the year. But despite a slow Thanksgiving weekend, November sales were actually up slightly over last year. It seems this can be attributed to an expansion in the sales season with retailers offering deep discounts as early as Halloween. With spotty sales reports so far this holiday season, retailers are now banking on Super Saturday, the last Saturday before Christmas, to make up for slow sales so far this year. In fact, according to ShopperTrak, Super Saturday is expected to surpass Black Friday as the top revenue-generating day of 2014 for brick-and-mortar stores. That means stores have to rely on procrastinators like me to save the holiday shopping season.

While the forecast for in-store sales is good this year, on-line holiday sales forecasts continue to grow year after year with Cyber Monday now being the biggest online shopping day of the year. Online sales are expected to grow 8 – 11% this year. The surge in online shopping shows holiday shoppers are in search of deals that are most convenient.

With lower gas prices and unemployment rates at a six-year low, retailers are hoping shoppers will have a little more cash to spend this holiday season. And with Christmas falling on Thursday this year, most people will have Friday off which will give them another opportunity to take advantage of after Christmas sales.

We’ll have to wait a few more days to see how the holiday shopping season ends up this year. In the meantime, I’ve got to get to it … Happy Shopping!