Experts at Sac State offer insights about the current shopping season and an individual's place in it. (Sacramento State/Andrea Price)“Alexa, what should I buy my friends and relatives for Christmas?”
The answer, for many shoppers this holiday season, will be “smart” speakers and other wireless devices that act as digital assistants, say College of Business Administration faculty members who study consumer behavior.
“Technology-enabled gadgets are going to be hot products,” said Jesse Catlin, an associate professor of marketing whose specialty is consumer psychology. Drones, voice-recognition devices and gadgets that use technology to remotely connect people to one another likely will top shopping lists, he said.
Also coming back into favor are gift cards, which seem to be making a comeback this holiday season, Sac State experts said.
And gifts of lifestyle experiences rather than physical items also appear to be on the rise.
“You can give me a wallet. That’s nice, but it’s more for utility,” observed marketing professor Beomjoon “Peter” Choi. “A gift of something like a day or two of wine tasting in Napa is an experience. It will linger in the memory.”
A robust economy, both locally and across the nation, forecasts a shopping season that could rack up all-time highs in sales, particularly online. Early statistics reported by Forbes magazine found that the Nov. 23 “Black Friday” sales for the country’s top online merchants rose to a record $6 billion, more than 20 percent over the previous year.
Surveys conducted by the Sacramento Business Review, for which Catlin and other Sac State faculty members study regional economic trends, suggest that “people are feeling pretty good” about the local area’s outlook, Catlin said.
And perception of the economy’s strength might be the most significant driver of spending trends during the holiday season.
But several other factors also could influence buying habits this year, said Dennis Tootelian, a Sac State emeritus professor of marketing. In Northern California, the devastating Camp Fire in Butte County, which killed at least 86 people and nearly wiped out the town of Paradise, may influence gift purchasing, Tootelian said. Nationally, a volatile stock market could factor in.
“This year will be interesting because the stock market is experiencing huge swings, and consumers don’t know how rich or poor they really are,” he observed.
“It also will be interesting to see if Northern California consumers redirect some of their holiday spending this year to donations for the Camp Fire victims,” said Tootelian. “I suspect that some money will drain from shopping to that, but probably nothing drastic.”
In its 2018 holiday retail survey, the financial consulting firm Deloitte found that 60 percent of shoppers planned to purchase holiday gifts online, compared to 55 percent last year. Only 32 percent planned to shop traditional department stores, a slight uptick from 2017, according to the survey.
Traditional malls “are not going to go away any time soon,” said Choi, despite the fact that more and more consumers are shopping online.
“People have been saying that brick-and-mortar stores are dying since the 1990s,” Catlin said. “But there still is a place for them.”
Malls likely will look a bit different in the future, Choi and Catlin agreed, and changes already are happening.
“I think we’ll start to see more hybrid models with smaller locations and fewer choices, backed up by a wider selection of merchandise online,” Catlin predicted.
Choi thinks large shopping centers will have to become “entertainment centers” to lure customers, offering much more than just products to purchase.
“They’re going to have to give people reasons to get out of the house” to find gifts and personal items, he said.
“Food trucks, music, a festival atmosphere, not just stores” will lure shoppers and encourage them to stay awhile, he predicted.
“Studies have shown a direct correlation between how long people spend at shopping venues and how much they spend,” Choi said. “So find a way to make them stay!” – Cynthia Hubert