Sluggish Economic Recovery Dampens Holiday Shopping Enthusiasm

Holiday shopping isn’t taking off as early as it has in the past few years. According to Zions Bank Senior Economist Robert Spendlove, the economy is still feeling the effects of the pandemic. “If you think about the pandemic kind of like throwing a rock into a lake, there are those … impacts, those ripple effects,” he said. “We’re past the big shock, but now we continue to see some of those ripple effects.” However, Spendlove believes that the economy is returning to normal and retail sales have started picking up again. He predicts that holiday shopping will pick back up after Thanksgiving.

According to Spendlove, months-early holiday shopping was more of a pandemic thing when last-minute shopping and picking up gifts wasn’t an option. “If you look at the economy during the pandemic, we saw initially the economy was cratering,” Stewart said. “We saw (a) dramatic reduction in the economy … (and) a big increase in unemployment. So, the federal government stepped in and they supported the economy. But, they also caused it to overheat.” However, according to Spendlove,