Understanding consumer behavior is important to retailers, especially as the holiday season approaches. Luckily, with the help of consumer data, retailers can pinpoint new purchasing trends.
The 2024 holiday season broke records, but 2025 is shaping up to be a different story. Americans are facing mounting challenges in the financial sphere, with the typical US consumer seeing a 12% decrease in median total assets over the past three years. Other challenges include wealth and income volatility, student loan impacts and high savings rates.
These challenges hit young Americans particularly hard, and this shows through in holiday spending patterns. More specifically, holiday spending amongst Gen Z has decreased by 23% between 2024 and 2025. Consumers are treading lightly with this year’s holiday purchases.
In order to juggle financial challenges with holiday spending, many Americans are shopping earlier in the year. Another popular trend is to shop at stores with a Buy Now, Pay Later policy. In fact, 43% of consumers say that Buy Now, Pay Later influences where they shop. Consumers are also looking for companies that offer personalized interactions, and prefer stores that offer a data-driven touch.
The ways in which consumers approach the holidays depends on a vast array of factors. Studying the financial backdrop in order to predict consumer purchasing trends is a good move for retailers hoping to find success during the holiday season.
Source: Equifax
