Every holiday season, retailers collectively try to answer one question: how much are consumers willing to spend?
This year, with shoppers balancing holiday traditions against lingering concerns about rising inflation and household budgets, I think there’s a more useful question: what will make them feel comfortable spending it?
We’re headed into the 2026 holiday season in an interesting position. People haven’t stopped shopping, but they’re more carefully scrutinizing what things cost. The Consumer Price Index was still up 3.4% year over year in August, and Deloitte’s latest consumer research found that 71% of respondents expected grocery prices to continue rising.
At the same time, this doesn’t look like a holiday season defined by consumers retreating altogether. Deloitte expects holiday retail sales to rise 4% to 4.8%, while Adobe forecasts U.S. online holiday spending will reach a record $275.1 billion, up 6.7% from last year.
In other words, people will still buy gifts, decorate their homes, host dinners, travel, and participate in the traditions that make the season feel like… the season. They’ll just think harder about what deserves a place in that cart.
Value is More Complicated Than Price
When budgets feel tight, the obvious marketing response is to lead with discounts. And promotions will certainly matter this year; consumers will increasingly use holiday sales to buy not only gifts but also everyday necessities like clothing basics, personal care items, and household supplies.
But we shouldn’t necessarily interpret that as evidence retailers simply need to be cheaper.
Consumers don’t evaluate prices in isolation. Decades of research into reference pricing shows that people judge a price relative to what they believe something should cost, based on previous prices, competing offers, and other reference points. These reference points can influence product choice, and consumers can respond particularly strongly when a price feels like a loss relative to what they expected.
During the holidays, when shoppers are bombarded with crossed-out prices, countdown timers, promotional emails and competing claims of the “best” deal, reference pricing becomes especially important.
And now there’s another wrinkle: AI. With more consumers turning to tools like ChatGPT to compare products, research prices and hunt for bargains, brands have to think about how their pricing looks beyond their own websites. Shoppers can ask AI to compare offers across retailers in seconds, making inflated original prices and less-than-impressive discounts harder to hide. That 40% off banner looks considerably less exciting when a chatbot finds the same product cheaper somewhere else.
The takeaway here is this: make the value easy to understand. It might mean a lower price, but other times, it could mean free shipping, a bundle, better quality, a generous return policy, loyalty rewards, or simply showing why your product will last longer or make a better gift than the cheaper alternative.
The Holidays Give Consumers Permission to Spend
Another reason I don’t expect value-conscious behavior to translate neatly into austerity: holiday purchases aren’t purely economic decisions.
We buy gifts because gift-giving communicates affection, identity, obligation, gratitude, and belonging. We spend money on traditions because traditions themselves have value. That emotional context gives marketers something to work with, but I think brands need to be careful about how they use it.
Help consumers justify the purchase they already want to make. Consumers will make deliberate spending choices while still prioritizing making the holidays special for friends and family. They may switch brands or retailers or use promotions to stretch strapped holiday budgets.
To earn their business, you need to make the emotional benefit and the economic case at the same time. Don’t just sell me the sweater for 25% off. Show me why my sister will love it, tell me it’ll arrive before Christmas, make the return easy if I guess the size wrong, and then show me I saved $30. You’ll reduce several types of friction all at once.
Be Careful With Manufactured Urgency
Scarcity is one of the oldest tools in the retail playbook, and for good reason. “Only three left,” “sale ends tonight,” and “limited edition” can all make delaying a purchase feel riskier. But consumers have grown familiar with these tactics, and scarcity can backfire when it feels artificial.
Supply-driven limited-quantity promotions can reduce consumers’ perceptions of retailer sincerity and purchase intention when inventory levels fall below what shoppers reasonably expect. Take that as a warning for your own holiday marketing: if an offer genuinely ends Friday, say so. If inventory really is limited, tell folks. But fake countdown timers and perpetually “ending” promotions teach customers not to trust the urgency.
That’s risky when people are already comparing shopping more aggressively, since a consumer who doubts your promotion can open another tab and check your competitor’s price in seconds. Trust is part of the value, too.
Give Shoppers More Ways to Manage the Purchase
Consumers are looking for lower prices, but also for more control over when andhow they spend. Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) spending is expected to reach a record $21.3 billion during November and December, up 6.6% from 2025.
It makes sense. Breaking a large purchase into smaller payments changes how that expense fits into a household budget, even though the total cost still matters.
You don’t necessarily need BNPL to respond to that behavior, either. You can give customers control in other ways: clearly communicate shipping thresholds, allow customers to save carts or wish lists, offer bundles at different price points, make loyalty rewards easy to redeem, and remove surprises at checkout.
Help People Make the Decision
Shoppers now have an extraordinary number of tools for comparison, and they’re using them. E-commerce holiday sales are expected to grow as much as 8.4% this season, helped in part by consumers using digital tools to research and compare purchases. AI-driven traffic should also remain elevated during the holidays.
As a result, product information has to become an integral part of your marketing strategy. Clear specifications, useful reviews, comparison charts, gift guides, sizing information, shipping dates, return terms, FAQs, and strong product photography all help customers answer the question sitting underneath a value-conscious purchase: Am I making the right choice?
Put just as much thought into reducing uncertainty as you do into crafting another promotional message.
Sell the Value, Not the Anxiety
There will be plenty of headlines this holiday season about cautious consumers, inflation, economic uncertainty, and promotional pressure. All of those forces are real.
But I don’t think we should approach the season as though shoppers have suddenly stopped wanting things. They’re still expected to spend record amounts online, and they still want to give good gifts and enjoy the holidays. They’re just more likely to compare, question, wait for an offer, switch brands, or walk away when the value isn’t obvious.
Our job as marketers has changed. To connect this season, we need to make sure our customers feel confident that what they’re buying is worth the money, appropriate for the person or occasion, and easy to purchase without creating another source of stress.
In an uncertain economy, confidence just might be one of the most persuasive things a retailer can sell.
Adam Ortman is a consumer psychologist and the founder and CEO of Kinetic319, a leading marketing agency. He helps brands adapt to fragmented discovery and AI-influenced decision-making by translating modern consumer behavior into practical strategies and media executions that build trust, preference, and sustainable growth.
