Christmas Shopping

Christmas Shopping

Emily Johnson

WIth snow on the way, Christmas music starting to fill all of the radio stations, and lights going up on every house in the neighborhood, people are starting to get into the holiday spirit. As we all know, with Christmas, comes presents, and with presents, comes shopping. It is this shopping that stores count on all year to increase their sales. According to Wahba, “The holiday season is crucial for many retailers, making or breaking the year for some chains and generating as much as 30% of sales”. This is due to the fact that with the spirit of Christmas in mind, people’s demand for these products increases, in result of the seasons changing. Due to this, stores tend to increase their supply this time of year in anticipation of an increase in consumers. Therefore showing that Christmas shopping has a positive impact on the economy.

As the desire to buy nicer and more expensive presents for loved ones increases, the rate of credit card use has increased over 7% from last year and debit card usage has increased over 3% from last year as well, according to ABC News. With more people spending money, there is more money being put into the economy and more profit being directed towards retail. According to the chart below from the National Retail Federation, you can see how much sales increases yearly in the holiday season. According to Wahba, this shopping season alone (including Black Friday), has an expected rise in industry sales of about 3.6% which accounts to about $655.8 billion. This amount is well above the 10 year clip of 2.5% growth and is better than the 3% rise for the 2015 Christmas period.

As technology becomes more relevant in our society too, online shopping popularity has skyrocketed as well. Ordering presents has become more popular in recent years rather than driving to the mall or department store, etc. As the graph below from This is Money News, the amount of internet usage in terms of holiday shopping has been increasing since 1999 and will continue to increase, also increasing the amount of sales. The increase of technology enabling availability of products it is much easier for consumers to get their hands on them which results in an increase in quantity demanded which also increases the quantity supplied.

The amount of sales both online and in stores has been increasing yearly. Consumer’s set aside a portion of their yearly income to devote towards holiday shopping as they anticipate the most cheerful time of year. Due to the amount of money spent on presents, it can be seen that this season positively impacts the economy due to the extreme increase in sales per retail store. It is because of these reasons and many others that we can expect a large increase in sales this season.

Bibliography

"Fears of Big Chill for UK Growth as Christmas Retail Sales Come in Worse than Feared." This Is Money. N.p., 2013. Web. 26 Nov. 2016.

Irwin, Neil. "Don’t Believe the Hype: Holiday Sales Won’t Make or Break the Economy." The New York Times. The New York Times, 2014. Web. 26 Nov. 2016.

Wahba, Phil. "Christmas Sales Are Expected to Be Strong This Year." Fortune. N.p., 2016. Web. 26 Nov. 2016.

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