On today’s WJR Business Beat, Jeff shares the forecast for shoppers this final weekend of the 2021 holiday season.
Tune in to the Business Beat, below, to learn what shoppers are buying and what this means for businesses:
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Good morning, Guy! Here on the Business Beat this morning, checking in on how last-minute holiday shopping is going. This is such a critical period of time for retailers. As you know, we are particularly concerned about how our local merchants will fare this holiday shopping season in the various Southeast Michigan So it’s just about 10 more days until Santa arrives. Here’s the latest based on new data from the National Retail Federation. The NRF expects that a total of roughly 148 million Americans will shop the last weekend of the holiday shopping season leading up to Christmas. And while that’s an increase from the 147 million who shopped the last weekend before Christmas in 2019, it’s down a bit from the 150 million who shopped last year. No. 2, the most shopped for gifts or clothing and accessories making up roughly 44% of consumer purchasing this holiday season: toys, 30%; books and other media, 26%; gift cards, roughly 25%, and electronics, 20%. Overall, respondents say they’re a little more than halfway through their shopping lists. And most, that is 71%, say they’ve been able to find what they want either all or most of the time. Now the NRF previously forecast gains between 8.5 and 10.5 percent over the 2020 shopping season. And the final stretch of the shopping season is expected to be strong up by as much as 11.5 percent over last year. So, all in all guys, this is shaping up to be a very good year for retailers driven largely by pent-up demand created by the pandemic as well as consumer purchasing power, staying strong through the holidays. So the sounds of the season, that is those cash registers ringing, will be going strong this weekend as we head into the final stretch and that is music to our ears indeed. I’m Jeff Sloan, founder and CEO of startupnation.com, and that’s today’s Business Beat on the Great Voice of the Great Lakes, WJR.
