Holiday sales kickoff: Retailers prepare for a bustling final quarter

WASHINGTON (TND) — Retailers are preparing for a bustling final quarter with holiday sales starting as early as this Friday.

Consumers can expect to see slashed prices up to Black Friday also known as retail’s Super Bowl.

It’s game time for Kalilah Wright, the founder and CEO of MESS In a Bottle, a t-shirt company that comes packaged in a reusable bottle.

“I’m definitely trying not to put out too many products. I am exploring some collaborations, just to see if maybe it’s like friends and mess for Black Friday,” the CEO said. “I’m just thinking of very innovative, creative ways to also make the burden of the holidays not be solely on me as a small business.”

It’s definitely the Super Bowl of, you know, the year. It’s definitely the time in which people shop. They want to spend money. So I think if you position yourself the right way, Q4 could definitely be very lucrative for your business.

Walmart kicks off online holiday deals on October 8th with in-store deals coming the day after. The promotion will run until October 12th.

Target Circle Week starts October 6.

Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days are October 8 and 9.

Best Buy has deals starting this Friday.

“Early October, you can really take advantage of kind of seasonal deals. And, you know, end of fall kind of deals on apparel, light outerwear,” explained Trae Bodge, a smart shopping expert. “We also see a lot of deals in the beauty category, as we look to kind of use richer products, for example, for our skin, I would hold off on tech in general, just because tech tends to be very strong around Black Friday, Cyber Monday.”

A record $9.8 billion was spent online for Black Friday last year, a 7.5% increase from the year before. Cyber Monday brought in $12.4 billion, according to Adobe Analytics.

“I’m just trying to build loyalty and repeat customers,” Wright said of her 2024 holiday efforts.

“A lot of people complain about these early holiday deals. They feel like they’re not ready to start thinking about holidays and that’s certainly fair. But what I do like about buying early is that you can spread your shopping across multiple pay periods, so it’s less immediately impactful on your monthly budget,” Bodge noted. “If you’re just buying here and there as you go, it’s less of a, you know, the bottleneck when we come to Black Friday and sort of into December.”

I cannot stress enough how important it is to start creating a list of your recipients, a budget for each, some gift ideas for each, and try to keep kind of the selfish shopping low as well, and sort of spend within your means. Really, the goal should be whatever you’re buying that you should be able to pay off in 2024 rather than bringing debt into 2025