Target to Amazon Prime Day II, 2022 Might Actually Be the Year of Revenge Christmas

tech.hindustantimes.com:

If it feels like the winter holiday season starts earlier every year, that's because it does. It's not just the pumpkin spice lattes and Christmas knits taking over your Instagram feed. This week, Target Corp. kicked off its deal days. Next week, Amazon. com Inc.'s second prime day of the year takes place.

Retailers are right to be out of the gate early on special holiday sales. This peak shopping period will be a battle between revenge spending and retrenchment from inflation. Revenge will win out — but only just.

The great rotation (think: consumers shifting away from pandemic purchases to those associated with going out again) combined with the great inflation (which has eaten into households' spending power) has upended the retail landscape. The big-box bloodbath earlier this year caused by late deliveries and consumers cutting back has left many chains with a mountain of unsold stock, requiring deep discounts to shift.

Last week, Nike Inc. reminded investors that inventory issues haven't gone away. A combination of consignments turning up late and holiday orders being placed earlier than usual increased the company's North American stocks by 65% compared with 2021. Inventory still in transit rose 85% and now accounts for almost two-thirds of the total.

Forecasts are only adding to gloom about spending and the impact on inventory.

Retail consultancy GlobalData expects the value of sales to increase by 6.6% this holiday season — half of the level of expansion in 2021, which benefited from early price rises and stimulus payments. This year, growth will be driven more by inflation than by the volume of goods sold. So people could actually end up buying less in categories including apparel, furniture and