A shorter shopping window complicates retail’s already challenging holiday season

By some metrics, the holiday shopping season is shaping up to be merry and bright. The National Retail Federation projects U.S. holiday sales will surpass $1 trillion for the first time in 2025, rising as much as 4.2% over last year. Similarly, EMarketer is forecasting holiday sales of $1.369 trillion, up 3.6% year over year.

But the holiday season is unfolding against a backdrop of economic uncertainty. U.S. employment is worsening with the highest level of October layoffs in 22 years last month, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas. Retail was one of the most heavily impacted industries, Modern Retail previously reported. Tariffs and inflation have also negatively colored consumer sentiment heading into retail’s biggest sales season. Consumer sentiment has fallen about 6% in November so far, according to the most recent survey from the University of Michigan.

All told, this year’s condensed shopping calendar is landing at a difficult moment for the industry. Retailers are already juggling tariff-related cost pressures that have complicated everything from inventory planning to pricing strategy, and now they have fewer days to make up crucial fourth-quarter sales. Consumers, meanwhile, are heading into the season with shaky confidence, tighter budgets and heightened sensitivity to prices. Taken together, a shorter runway and a more cautious shopper are reshaping when — and how much — people are willing to spend, adding yet another layer of uncertainty to an already strained holiday period.

“We’re going to see a lot of different headwinds this year, and this is one of them,” said Katherine Black, a partner at global management consulting firm Kearney, where she leads food, drug and mass market retail.

Here’s a look at how retailers and consumers are preparing for a shorter holiday season complicated by President Donald Trump’s trade war, inflation and a worsening labor market.

Early deals, early shopping

Over the past few years, retailers have pulled forward the timing of holiday deals, kicking off the season outside of tentpole occasions like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

This year was no exception, as Amazon effectively kicked off the holiday season with its earliest ever “Big Deals Prime Day” sale in October. The sale ran from Oct. 7 through Oct. 8, slightly earlier than last year’s event, when the sales ran from Oct. 8 until Oct. 9. Retailers including Best Buy, Target, Walmart and Kohl’s hosted parallel sales designed to capture early holiday demand before the traditional Black Friday surge.

Some retailers introduced their holiday marketing campaigns well before Halloween. Macy’s, for instance, started its “100 Days to Christmas” campaign in September. Meanwhile, Nordstrom launched its holiday season campaign at the end of October. Walmart promoted its Thanksgiving meal basket in late October.

That strategy may become even more important this year as retailers navigate fewer selling days between Thanksgiving and Christmas Day, along with concerns about how tariffs and inflation may impact consumer spending.

Kearney’s Black said that while Black Friday and Cyber Monday remain the season’s biggest tentpoles, this year’s economic backdrop is amplifying the need for strong early performance. “Cyber Monday and Black Friday have never been more important,” she said, adding that economic uncertainty and higher prices are motivating people to seek out promotions earlier in the season.

According to Circana’s annual holiday outlook survey, 44% of U.S. consumers say they plan to begin their holiday shopping earlier than they normally would. That’s up four percentage points higher from Circana’s survey last year. Nearly half of consumers plan to start shopping before Thanksgiving. Less than 20% will wait until December, the fewest last-minute shoppers since 2021.

Black said the shorter holiday shopping calendar may also hinder impulse purchases. “You may be a little less likely to pick up the ‘Oh, I need to get another gift’ thing. … So, it can absolutely have an impact,” she said.

Faster, diversified delivery

A shorter shopping window means operational precision matters more. Retailers have only a few weeks to move inventory and meet tighter shipping deadlines.

Black said the fundamentals will be critical: “They need to have fast shipping. It needs to be easy for [the] consumer. They need to have great in-stocks, and the experience really matters.”

That pressure is pushing retailers to diversify last-mile options. Kevin Sides, CEO at logistics provider ShipMonk, said shifting volume to regional carriers has become one of the biggest logistics trends across his client base heading into the peak holiday season. Indeed, regional carriers like Jitsu, SpeedX and Veho ramped up their service coverage in the U.S. earlier this year, per Supply Chain Dive.

“It’s not just FedEx and UPS getting orders out and delivered anymore. These regionals have way more of a market share,” Sides said, citing alternative parcel carriers like OnTrac and UniUni. “If 50% of your volume [is] not going with a regional, you’re leaving a lot on the table from both cost and performance.”

More specialty retailers inked partnerships with delivery startups in 2025, rather than building out their own fulfillment networks, to better compete with behemoths like Amazon and Walmart. Old Navy and DoorDash, for instance, launched a nationwide partnership for same-day delivery of clothing and holiday items, making it one of the first major apparel retailers on the platform. Ace Hardware also inked a deal with DoorDash earlier this year, offering on-demand delivery from local hardware stores.

Despite the compressed calendar, Sides said consumers shouldn’t expect widespread delivery disruptions, as long as they avoid last-minute ordering and pay attention to shipping deadlines. “There’s not a carrier that’s not [delivering] packages in time for the holidays when you’re shipping by the third [of December],” he said. “But consumers shouldn’t wait too much to the last minute.”

As the season progresses — and delivery windows get smaller — consumers may opt to shop in stores. Bain & Company’s holiday forecast predicts that 36% of U.S. consumers will shop entirely or mostly in physical stores, up from 24% in 2024.

Large retailers with expansive store networks can also lean more heavily on same-day and buy-online, pick-up in-store options. Brad Jashinsky, director analyst at Gartner. said these capabilities will become more important as shipping cutoffs approach. As he put it, “That’s where the advantage of Amazon, Walmart, Target and others [comes in], where they can utilize their very sophisticated supply chains or … in-store” fulfillment.