One commerce and shopping expert is recommending purchasing gifts earlier than normal for the 2021 holiday season in the wake of shipping delays and supply constraints.
Jenn Gregory, president of Downtown Strategies, joined WDUN’s Newsroom on Oct. 21 and said that consumer demand is at an all-time high.
“Really where we are going to see the biggest difference is that people are not going to receive those gifts that they ordered in a timely manner,” Gregory said. “We do anticipate people to start shopping much earlier to try to balance out that dichotomy of huge demand but problems with the workforce and the supply chain.”
Gregory said that several issues are bringing about these changes throughout the holiday shopping period.
“We know that factory shutdowns, chip shortages, and just the sheer problems with the workforce, the lack of employees, are really creating backlogs, not only with manufacturers but also getting those items from overseas to the ports,” Gregory said.
USPS, UPS and FedEx are also expecting to experience backlogs throughout the holidays due to employee shortages.
The workforce and supply chain issues will also impact big holiday sales, such as Black Friday, according to Gregory.
“We’re really not even predicting to see the big deal extravaganzas that we’ve seen in the past,” Gregory said. “If there are going to be those big sales, they’re going to happen much earlier. We know that demand is going to be high, and a lot of stores just to try to conserve some profits are really not planning on doing big sales at all. But if they are, they’re starting now.”
Gregory said to expect big sales on clothing, as many of these items are leftover from 2020 when demand was low.
Unfortunately, Gregory said do not expect as much when it comes to deals on electronics.
“Electronics are going to be a big problem because a lot of those chips, kind of the brains of the electronics are just really behind,” Gregory said.
Gregory said holiday 2021 is expected to be a big shopping period for small businesses, even in the wake of these challenges.
“This is shaping up to be their year … analysts are forecasting that in-store shopping is going to increase about 6.6%,” Gregory said. “It’s a huge shift from last year. We saw 2020, everything really pushed the consumer to the digital realm, and that’s still going to happen, those digital sales are always growing, but we anticipate in-store shopping to increase significantly from last year.”
The full audio interview with Gregory is available above.
