NEW YORK (AP) — The Christmas shopping rush has ended and in its place, like every year, another has begun as millions hunt for post-holiday deals and line up to return gifts that didn’t fit or didn’t fit.
Holiday spending using cash or cards through Sunday surpassed last year’s level, according to data released this week by Visa and Mastercard’s consulting and analytics division SpendingPulse.
But growing uneasiness about the U.S. economy and higher prices, partly due to President Donald Trump’s tariffs, have changed the behavior of some Americans. According to data from Placer.ai, more end up in home improvement stores or other discounters instead of malls. The firm tracks people’s movements based on mobile phone usage.
And they stick more closely to shopping lists and do more research before they buy. That could explain why yields are down so far compared to last year, according to data from Adobe Analytics.
Here are three trends that have defined the holiday shopping season so far:
A weaker holiday season for traditional gift giving
According to data from Placer.ai, Americans are still spending on gifts, but more and more shopping is happening at high-end and discount stores.
This likely forces traditional retailers such as department stores to fight harder for customers, Placer.ai said.
Apparel and electronics, which traditionally dominate holiday sales, saw growth but struggled to grow, according to Placer.ai. Both goods are import-dominated and therefore vulnerable to tariffs.
For example, department store traffic doubled in the week before Christmas, from December 15 to Sunday, compared to the average shopping week this year. But traffic in the week before Christmas this year was down 13.2% compared to 2024.
Traffic is up 61% at traditional apparel-only retailers in the week leading up to the holiday compared to the rest of the year. But again, compared to last year’s run-up to Christmas, sales were down 9%.
Some of this lost traffic may have migrated to so-called off-price stores – chains like TJ Maxx. This sector had a seasonal traffic spike of 85.1% and a 1.2% gain in the week leading up to the holiday.
But thrift stores were in the red, with traffic up almost 11% in the week before Christmas compared to last year.
“Whether searching for a designer bargain or discovering a one-of-a-kind vintage piece, consumers have increasingly preferred discovery-based experiences over the standardized assortments of traditional retail,” Shira Petrack, head of content at Placer.ai, said in a blog post Friday.
Thrift stores are expanding their appeal
In the past, it might have seemed tacky to give your mom a gently used sweater or pair of pants from a local thrift store, but apparently that’s not the case amid all the economic uncertainty and rising prices, according to Placer.ai.
By the second half of 2025, thrift stores have seen at least a 10% increase in traffic compared to last year. This suggests that environmental concerns as well as economic issues are drawing more Americans to thrift stores, Placer.ai said. Thrift store visits generally don’t take off during the holidays, but during the most recent Black Friday weekend, sales were up 5.5 percent, Placer.ai reported. reported.
In November, as customer traffic from traditional clothing stores fell by more than 3%, traffic from thrift stores increased by 12.7%, according to Placer.ai.
The thrift migration has changed the demographics of thrift stores. The median household income of utility customers reached $75,000 in October and November of this year, a slight increase from $74,900 last year, $74,600 in 2023 well above the median income of $74,100 in 2022, based on demographic data from STI:PopStats combined with Placers data.
U.S. sales at thrift store chain Savers Value Village rose 10.5 percent in the three months ended Sept. 27, and the momentum continued into October, store executives said in late October.
“The high household income cohort continues to become a larger part of our consumer mix,” CEO Mark Walsh told analysts. “It’s definitely a declining shift, and our younger cohort continues to grow in numbers.”
Fewer returns, so far
In the first six weeks of the holiday season, return rates are down from the same period a year ago, according to Adobe Analytics.
This suggests that shoppers are doing more research before adding something to their shopping list and are more disciplined about sticking to the lists they create, according to Vivek Pandya, principal analyst at Adobe Digital Insights.
“I think it’s very indicative of consumers and how conscientiously they bought,” Pandya said. “A lot of them are very specific about how they spend their budget.”
From Nov. 1 to Dec. 12, returns fell 2.5 percent compared to last year, Adobe reported. In the seven days following cyber week — the five shopping days between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday — returns fell 0.1 percent.
From Nov. 1 to Dec. 12, online sales rose 6 percent to $187.3 billion, on track to beat the outlook for the season, Adobe reported.
Between Dec. 26 and Dec. 31, returns are expected to increase by 25 percent to 35 percent compared with returns between Nov. 1 and Dec. 12, Adobe said, and returns are expected to remain elevated in the first two weeks of January, at 8 percent to 15 percent.
This is the first year Adobe has tracked returns.
However, the last week of December sees the highest concentration of returns: one in eight returns in the 2024 holiday season occurred between December 26 and 31, a trend expected to continue this year, Adobe said.