Year of the Gift Card

A curated collection of can’t-miss news from this week, including consumer trends and more. Sign up to get the TURNER Weekly Download in your inbox.

Holiday Shopping Starts Early

You’ve probably heard that the holiday shopping season has already kicked off. As a result of supply chain woes, chains and consumers are looking to get ahead of the game. CNBC reports: “With widespread supply chain warnings, retailers including Amazon and Target started to offer holiday promotions even earlier than normal to get ahead of the lack of inventory and to ease consumer anxiety. That may yet lead to an accelerated timeline for holiday gift buying.”

Black Fridays

Walmart has also started ramping up its holiday shopping options early —  including an array of Black Friday deals, reports USA Today. “Instead of one sale that has traditionally started on Thanksgiving, there will be three different events online and in stores like last year,” writes Kelly Tyko. “Walmart stores also will be closed this Thanksgiving for the second time since the late 1980s because of the coronavirus pandemic.”

Year of the Gift Card

Supply chain challenges and shortages may result in gift cards being a lot more popular during the holidays. “It might be time to get over the taboo of giving a gift card,” warns Fast Company’s Elizabeth Segran. “If you can’t get friends or family what they want right away, let them buy the product themselves in the new year, when stock comes in. And this ensures they’ll buy things they really want, reducing the chance of environmentally terrible returns.”

E-Commerce Gains

Predictably, the pandemic caused major leaps in e-commerce revenue. This upcoming holiday season will see that trend growing even more. Insider Intelligence has some projections: “Cyber Monday will once again be the biggest online spending day in US history at $12.12 billion, up 12.4 percent from last year. Black Friday is expected to be the second biggest day of the season with sales increasing by 15.8 percent to $10.42 billion, while Thanksgiving will come in at No. 3 with a 20.7 percent jump to $6.10 billion.

Weekly Moment of Zen

20 last-minute Halloween costumes to snag from Amazon ASAP.