Expect heavy promotions this holiday shopping season: Analyst

As the holiday shopping season is right around the corner, Sucharita Kodali, Forrester Research retail analyst, joins Wealth! to break down the promotions consumers can expect and some of the retailers that a best poised to benefit.

“We are expecting this to be a very heavy promotional season. You have to remember coming out of the last several years, we had everything from supply chain challenges to other issues related to the fact that retailers just were not promoting as much. So we’re seeing starting last year, and certainly this year, much, much heavier promotional activity, especially given that consumers may be cautious to open their wallets,” Kodali tells Yahoo FInnace.

Thus, she expects retailers to increase the number and duration of promotions this holiday season. She points to major names like Amazon (AMZN) and Walmart (WMT) that are in a position to benefit. Kodali also points to Dick’s Sporting Goods (DKS), Crocs (CROX), and Abercrombie (ANF) as brands that are also performing well and could get a boost during the holiday season.

To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Wealth here.

This post was written by Melanie Riehl

Video Transcript

Holiday shopping under way, I’m looking for discounts.

Consumers are looking for any type of promotions that they can get.

What is the outlook for promotions through year end and where can consumers expect to get the most value for their money?

We are expecting this to be a very heavy promotional season.

You have to remember coming out of the last several years, we had everything from supply chain challenges to um other issues related to the fact that um retailers just were not promoting as much.

So we’re seeing starting last year and certainly this year much, much heavier promotional activity, especially given that consumer may be cautious to open their wallets.

The way that retailers get consumers to actually purchase is by increasing the number of promotions, the number of items that are discounted or the length of time that those promotions happen.

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And I expect all of that to come out in full force through the holiday season.

And uh we also have to remember that Amazon just came out of a huge uh prime day, their big day deals just last week and that pulled forward a lot of promotional activity.

So consumers may have already purchased a lot of their holiday um items.

So what you have left is going to have to be driven by um really, really high discounts and uh and other retailers being particularly aggressive in the weeks to come.

They do have me making lists earlier on and uh monitoring the behavior of some people on those lists as well.

But ultimately, cita a as we think about which retailers are perhaps best positioned to benefit even throughout a promotional and a highly promotion pressured type of cycle for the larger retailers who is best positioned from your, your calculus and your estimation.

Well, it’s always the stalwarts, Amazon and Walmart certainly um should do well again this holiday season.

But even some of the specialty retailers like Dick’s Sporting Goods has been doing pretty well this year.

Um And you do have car brands.

Um I know that we hear a lot that Nike is struggling but there are companies like Crocs that are doing really, really well and those are often um holiday types of purchases.

They’re seasonal as anyone.

So I expect um, a variety of different players, they’re definitely going to be um, winners and losers.

Abercrombie has had a relatively strong year.

Um I wouldn’t have expected that but uh it’s, it’s, it’s a, it’s a bit all over the board and you certainly have um, unexpected players that are exhibiting strength