Early bird buyers might score fantastic Christmas discounts

Indianapolis, Indiana – Despite the fact that Christmas Day is nearly ninety days away, it’s never too early to start your holiday shopping.

“Apple launched a new suite of phones, and they always launch it in the 4th fiscal quarter because they want those to be gift items at the holiday time period,” said John Talbott, director of education at the Center for Education and Research in Retail for the IU Kelley School of Business.

Talbott advises consumers to purchase everything they see in-person or online right away because the price probably won’t go down. Even non-traditional Christmas shopping destinations like Lowes or Home Depot provide discounts to customers.

“The spread of these sort of holiday-based items I think has grown, and I think stores are using it as a mechanism to bump average cart size up,” said Talbott.

Talbott anticipates that, for the first time since before the epidemic, the holiday shopping season of 2023 will not be marred by problems with the supply chain caused by Covid.

“It’s been a lot of up and down over the last 5 years, and I think the retail community would like to return to a greater state of normalcy, whatever that means,” Talbott said.

This Christmas, Annie Merritt has a long list of things she wants to buy. She is starting her shopping now, not when the weather becomes chilly.

“My brother is sitting right over there, and I already have his Christmas gift ready to go. I can’t tell you what it is though,” said Merritt.

Customers should buy everything they like at a smaller store right away, advises Talbott, as they don’t have as much inventory as big-box retailers.