Major retailers vie for piece of holiday spending boom

An emphasis on value and affordability is creating a stark divide between the industry’s winners and losers. Many of the apparent victors, meanwhile, are carrying momentum into the all-important holiday season as Americans reach deep into their wallets to splurge on gifts for family and friends.

During this holiday season, consumers plan to spend an average of $2,100 on top of their monthly expenses, according to an annual survey from the Bank of America Institute—a 7% jump from last year. While 62% of respondents anticipated feeling financial strain around holiday expenses, that number is down from the 67% who expressed those sentiments in 2023.

Stephanie Link, chief investment strategist at Hightower Advisors, recently told Fortune that consumer strength could prompt a prolonged market rally.

 “We are a nation of spenders,” she said, adding that the claim holds whether or not Americans have the cash to pay for holiday outlays or must run up a credit card balance.

Retail readies itself for shortened holiday season

Nonetheless, consumers are still paying more for necessities and are planning to stretch their dollar, according to the BofA Institute. Nearly three in five of those surveyed are planning to trade down, or do more shopping at discount stores, over the holidays. The report said those results are in line with trends in apparel stores.

In August, Abercrombie CEO Fran Horowitz indicated that might be bad news for the company, with her warnings about an “increasingly uncertain” economic environment in the second half of 2024 causing the stock to fall 15%. Instead, she ended up boasting about record sales in Q3 and issuing a full-year forecast that came in on the high end of the Street’s expectations.

“We have had a strong start to the quarter, seeing positive reads in our holiday assortments,” she said on the earnings call. “Most of the fourth quarter sales are ahead of us.”

BofA analysts, however, noted that the heavy use of promotions in October and November could threaten sales in the final month of 2024. Even as Dick’s raised its full-year guidance after a strong back-to-school season, for example, management indicated it was cautious about overheating expectations amid a shortened holiday season. With only 27 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, CEO Lauren Hobart noted, there are five fewer shopping days compared to last year.

Now, of course, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are in the rearview mirror. BofA said it expects a deep lull between that rush and the weekend before Christmas, with department stores still heavily reliant on promotions to drive traffic in the tighter shopping window.

“After a year of pressured consumer spending amid a volatile macro backdrop and more recently, the election, many retailers are also relying heavily on [Q4] to deliver a strong comp,” managing director Lorraine Hutchinson and fellow analysts Christopher Nardone, Melanie Nuñez, and Mary Sport wrote in a note Monday.

Some big names seem likely to disappoint, however. Outgoing Kohl’s CEO Tom Kingsbury took the blame as the company reported an 11^th straight quarter of declining sales and further lowered its revenue forecast for the year. Its stock is now the most shorted in the U.S., according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Kingsbury will be replaced by Walmart executive Ashley Buchanan, currently the head of arts and crafts chain Michaels, in January. It’s hard to blame Kohl’s for tapping experience from Walmart, which tops the Fortune Global 500 List and has seen its shares outpace blue-chip tech stocks like Apple and Alphabet—not to mention e-commerce giant Amazon—this year.

Consumers may be only gradually loosening their belt this holiday season. For retailers that execute, however, it seems there’s money to be made.