Holiday spending expected to fall
Experts say the impact fromCOVID will be felt greatly by Houston shoppers this season
Despite the best efforts of retailers large and small to jumpstart holiday shopping with discounts well before the traditional Thanksgiving start to the season, sales are projected to increase only modestly across the country compared to last year. In Houston, they are likely to be worse.
While shoppers nationwide are expected to spend $1.15 trillion this holiday season, a 1 percent increase form 2019 levels, holiday spending in Houston is projected to plunge from last year’s heights, according to a survey from consulting firm Deloitte.
Houstonians will spend about $1,201 per household on average this holiday season, 23 percent less than last year and below the national average of $1,387 and the projected $1,331 average for the South, according to a survey conducted in September.
Nearly half of shoppers surveyed in the Houston area said they planned to spend less this year due to economic concerns, and household finances were worse for 1 in 3 shoppers.
“Houston has felt a larger impact from COVID than the national average, given the industry complement in Houston,” said JeffBuhr, a retail analyst and partner with Deloitte’s Houston office.
The holiday season arrives as Houston reels from an oil bust, and as the coronavirus pandemic continues to pummel the travel and hospitality industries — another blow for a city known for its culinary destinations.
Houstonians plan on spending significantly less this year on socializing away from home, Buhr said — 58 percent less — and that’s another reason spending is expected to fall further in Houston.
“Historically, Houstonians spent more on travel than others,” Buhr said. “And now it’s less.”
But it’s not all bad, retail analysts said.
“Despite some of these challenges and declines, nearly twothirds of Houstonians are still planning on donating to chari
ty,” Buhr said. “That giving spirit is still a positive.”
Houston, as it turns out, is also on the forefront of retail trends accelerated by the pandemic, said Lori Zumwinkle, North America retail lead for Accenture, which conducted its own holiday spending survey in Houston.
Some 85 percent of respondents to its survey said they would shop online this year, notably higher than the national average of 75 percent. Accenture’s survey also found 44 percent of shoppers in Houston will rely on curbside pickup this season, and 58 percent said they would likely ship gifts directly to recipients.
“With Houston being such a car city, curbside is extremely important to the customers that live in Houston,” Zumwinkle said. “More so than the national average.”
Shoppers in Houston will spend about 64 percent of their holiday budget online this year, according to Deloitte’s data. That’s up from 59 percent last year. In-store sales projections for this year fell to 28 percent from 36 percent in 2019; 53 percent of Houston shoppers said they’re anxious about in-store shopping because of the coronavirus.
The data suggest that the brickand-mortar retail sector will continue to suffer through the end of the year. At the same time, the shift has been a boon for others.
With online sales on the rise, so are jobs at fullfillment centers, said Mathieu Stevens, CEO of Snagajob, noting e-commerce jobs in Houston are up 179 percent from pre-pandemic levels. But hourly jobs in Houston are still down by 25 percent overall since before the pandemic, he said, even as hourly jobs have more than recovered at the national level.
“Where Houston lags the national picture is in overall job recovery,” Stevens said.