Omicron and Holiday Shopping Converge in Last Week Before Christmas

Brian Wright of San Diego secured gifts for clients of the communications firm where he is employed by the middle of November to ensure they arrived on time. But the 22-year-old has yet to make any purchases for the roughly eight people on his personal Christmas list.

“There’s an advantage to late shopping without much of a plan,” said Mr. Wright, who intends to begin his shopping just days before Christmas. “You don’t know what you don’t know. So, I’ll just pick from what’s available.”

NRF has said holiday retail sales this year could rise as much as 11.5% from last year, up from its initial forecast of an increase as much as 10.5% to $859 billion. The industry group defines the holiday season as Nov. 1 through Dec. 31. Chains such as Walmart Inc. reported strong sales heading into Black Friday, while others such as Gap Inc. have warned product shortages would crimp sales.

Earlier holiday shopping contributed to October retail sales rising 1.7% from the month before. Sales rose more modestly in November, which economists attributed to lingering inflation and supply shortages in addition to consumers’ purchases happening earlier in the season.

So far, consumers have done more of their holiday shopping at physical stores this year than in 2020, when a spike in Covid-19 infections and stay-at-home orders put a damper on traffic.

If the current season’s trend continues, there should be a surge in store visits from shoppers buying last-minute gifts and groceries, although it is too early to tell how the new Omicron variant might impact consumer behavior, said Ethan Chernofsky, vice president of marketing for data analytics firm Placer.ai.

So-called “ship-by” dates for the least expensive services offered by the U.S. parcel carriers have passed, making online shopping a potentially risky option for people who want their orders delivered by Christmas Eve. Some shoppers are willing to wait.

Last year, Rosie J. Pova broke with her tradition of last-minute holiday shopping and woke up at 4 a.m. on Black Friday to go to Walmart in hopes of securing a PlayStation 5 videogame console for her son. “Of course we were number 42 in line and they only had like 16, so that was useless,” said Ms. Pova, a children’s book author who lives in Dallas. Christmas finally came in June, she said.

This year, Ms. Pova said she has reverted to her old habits and plans to find substitutions for anything she can’t find. Late holiday gifts aren’t out of the question either. “I’ve been known to just send gifts after the fact,” she said. “I always have an excuse of some sort.”

The last Saturday before Christmas is consistently the second-busiest shopping day for stores by traffic of the holiday season after Black Friday, said Peter McCall, a retail services consultant for Sensormatic Solutions, which tracks store foot traffic with traffic-counting devices in stores. Despite the increase in early shopping this year, “Panic Saturday” is expected to hold on to that spot when the final data comes in, he said.

“Starting and completing are two different things,” Mr. McCall said. “We may be starting earlier, but the data tells us that we’re still leveraging those last days.”

Last-minute shoppers have many reasons for waiting. Some believe playing chicken with retailers will result in getting better deals than could be found earlier in the holiday shopping season. For some Americans, waiting longer means more time to scrape together money for presents. Others enjoy the rush of being in a packed mall on Christmas Eve.

“I feel like that’s the one time I’m able to truly feel the holiday spirit,” said Asa Leveaux, 38, of Oklahoma City. “That doesn’t give me anxiety. That doesn’t overwhelm me. That is literally what Christmas looks like for me.”

Mr. Leveaux’s teenage son won’t be with him on Christmas, but since Mr. Leveaux spent many holidays away from home while serving in the military, he said he values traditional Christmas experiences. “I’m doing my best to manufacture joy,” he said.

Write to Charity L. Scott at [email protected]