Holiday shopping reveals the national mood to this retail expert : NPR

PITTSBURGH — Katie Thomas noticed everything at her local mall: how the clothes in an athleisure store’s window display changed from blue to brown overnight. The aisles of Nordstrom are so spaced out that they appear quiet, but there are swarms of people carrying branded bags. How many teenagers – a group of boys! – School nights are here, actually shopping, laden with bags.

As a teenager, Thomas worked and spent time at the Ross Park Mall. Now that’s where she scouts as a retail expert. Part anthropologist and part oracle, Thomas Kearney leads the Consumer Institute, a think tank inside the consulting firm used by some of the largest retailers and brands. Her job is to find out what our shopping habits say about our economy and our future.

“Are you shopping today just for fun? Holiday shopping?” Thomas asks a woman carrying a bag from Madewell, J.Crew and the White House Black Market. She knows it’s a piece of both – the woman has a new pleather jacket for herself and sunglasses for her daughter.

As Thomas peers into her crystal ball – a mix of government and corporate data, surveys and research, things she sees and hears from shoppers and retail workers – she has put her finger on a new driving force of the American shopper.

“It really all comes down to control,” she says. “They’re trying to figure out what they can control in a world where they feel like they’re losing control.”

From a worldwide pandemic to rising inflation, then tariffs, a historic government shutdown, and an unstable world order, people are finding agency over their own spending. And it’s changing how they shop this holiday season and into 2026.

“I’m calling it the frugal consumer,” says Thomas. “Not frugal in the sense of old-fashioned penny-pinching and reusing grandma’s tinfoil, but I mean, we’re seeing exhaustion that extends far beyond the wallet. Where am I spending my money, my time, my energy — how am I distributing it in a world that’s been feeling so exhausted lately?” Is it?”

Finding Ways to Empower Yourself Through Shopping

The craving for control and agency shows up in different ways. There are boycotts by shoppers – think of the crises at Bud Light and Target, some of the biggest in recent years. Higher prices for name-brand groceries have declined as shoppers of all incomes are switching to store-brand items they never used to buy, including chips and candy. And the change in aesthetics is increasing.

The pandemic forced us to stick to neutrals and comfortable clothes, leading to the millennial obsession with “cool luxury,” beige and pastel colors. But now color and maximalism are back in our homes and closets, hanging on to bold prints and plush purses.

“We want to be loud. We want to be individuals. We want to feel seen,” says Thomas.

“I’ve also heard from the staff at this mall,” she says, pointing to the festively lit, buzzing hallways, “that people are spending on the ‘wow’ piece, not on the basic — something fun.”

It’s hard to fit the splurge on the “wow” piece into the common narrative about the American shopper: Consumers are cautious, on edge, tightening their budgets.

This is because two contradictory things are happening in the economy. Consumer sentiment – ​​a measure of how people feel about the financial situation in the US and their households – is at its lowest level since the pandemic. Yet retail spending continues to rise, with the holidays expected to set another record.

How we feel vs. why we shop

The National Retail Federation, an industry trade group, estimates our holiday spending will top $1 trillion for the first time. Thomas’s forecast is less bullish, but still higher than ever.

“I think we often forget the psychological aspect of it,” she says. “It’s not just where consumers are spending their dollars; it’s the why and the how.”

The “why” right now is the season of celebration and gift-giving, a search for happiness as a respite from the bleak economic outlook that people share with polluters. And shopping provides a semblance of control and normalcy: Thomas found that during the pandemic shutdown, going out to shop was one of the top things people reported missing most.

And now the “how” has to do with who is buying and with what money. Most of the spending has been by the wealthy, many of whom may have invested in the strong stock market or seen the value of their homes increase. But other people are also shopping. Although finding a new job has become harder over the past several months, unemployment is not skyrocketing, and wages are rising faster than inflation.

thinking twice about that one more thing

Still, there is one caveat. Shoppers Are There has to be selectivity and a laser-focus on deals, as retailers from Walmart to Macy’s to Dick’s Sporting Goods have reiterated all year.

“Guests are selective, stretching budgets and prioritizing value,” Target executive Richard Gomez told investors last week.

For the holidays, Thomas is seeing shoppers second-guess and leave out a few extra things — just one more stocking stuffer or a small gift as a self-gift — that people may have thrown into their baskets without much thought during late-pandemic shopping.

Thomas’s pet-check-the-extras theory is soon proven on her recent outing to Ross Park Mall, when she chats up a shopper carrying Madewell and J.Crew bags. Shea Harmison, visiting from West Virginia, wonders how her holiday spending might be different this year.

“I’d probably try not to buy so much crap,” says Harmison. “Don’t spend money on things that I don’t think are going to be useful or can’t be used… buying stuff just for the sake of buying it, you know?”

And Thomas predicts — in a forecast shared by online-spending trackers like Adobe Analytics — that it means stores may have to offer deeper discounts than anticipated this holiday season, to try to curb the desire for control.