The holiday shopping season ahead will be expensive for consumers and lackluster for retailers, according to a professor in the University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business who spent more than 20 years in brand management and market research. Professor Peggy Stover, director of the UI’s Marketing Institute, says there are so many factors weighing down the economy as we head into December, there’s little optimism for the crucial economic month ahead.
While some might view any increase in sales over last year as a plus, Stover says merchants should brace for essentially a stagnant season.
A national survey estimates the average consumer plans to spend just under $1,600 on gifts during the holidays, that’s a 10% drop from last year. Stover says there’s just too much uncertainty, including over whether the federal government will be shutting down again in a matter of weeks. Many merchants may struggle to get by for the first 11 months of the year, Stover says, then they’ll make up for it with the busy December.
It’s been a difficult year for a lot of families in Iowa and nationwide, Stover says, noting about one-point-one million private sector workers lost their jobs between January and October, while DOGE eliminated perhaps as many as 300-thousand federal positions.
