Dive Brief:

• As payments companies look to the usually lucrative holiday shopping season, signs are emerging this year that inflation-weary consumers may be tightening their belts as they face higher costs.
• Surveys and assessments from big banks, including Morgan Stanley, the British consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers and financial services firm Wedbush all suggested 2025 holiday sales show consumers, pinched by stubbornly persistent inflation, are looking to spend less. "Commentary from recent weeks suggests that while demand is healthy, consumers are looking for discounts and remain relatively price sensitive," Wedbush Securities analysts wrote in a note last Tuesday to investors
• To be sure, some early reports regarding subsequent sales on Black Friday, the big shopping day after the Thanksgiving holiday, pointed to the resilience of consumer demand. Those reports from the software company Salesforce and card network Mastercard showed an uptick in spending for that period.

Dive Insight:

U.S. consumers expect their seasonal spending to decline 5% this year compared to last year, according to Wedbush’s note that cited data from PricewaterhouseCoopers. Spending on gifts is expected to drop 11% compared with 2024, thanks to rising concern about tariffs and economic policy, Wedbush analysts wrote.

An assessment of payment data from processing giant Fiserv, also released last Tuesday, showed retail sales down 0.6% in the prior seven weeks compared with the same time period last year, and restaurant sales down 0.3%, with foot traffic also showing small declines in both sectors.

Fifty-two percent of consumers plan to spend less during the holiday season than they did last year, according to a TD Bank survey of roughly 2,500 consumers conducted in October. And 28% percent of consumers expect to scale back their spending “significantly,” compared to 25% who said that last year, according to a Morgan Stanley survey of around 2,000 consumers, which was published on Nov. 17.

“This year’s holiday shopping season is shaping up to be more subdued than last year with consumer sentiment signaling caution,” Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in a note accompanying the investment bank’s survey.

In the meantime, consumer sentiment plummeted in November compared to last year, dropping to 51% from 71.8% in November 2024, according to the University of Michigan's monthly consumer sentiment index. 

“Consumers remain frustrated about the persistence of high prices and weakening incomes,” survey director Joanne Hsu wrote in a statement on the University’s website.

However, the Fiserv analysis showed overall sales up 1.5% over the period last year, and average ticket sizes 1.8% higher. Still, those figures are both lower than the average rate of price increases across the economy. Annual inflation is running at 2.7%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

To be clear, some indicators show consumer spending remains resilient even in the face of economic strain and uncertainty.

Early data on Black Friday sales showed a modest boost in the United States. A report from the software company Salesforce said that the shopping holiday drove $18 billion in sales in the U.S., a 3% increase from last year’s Black Friday sales. Mastercard reported retail spending volume on Black Friday grew 4.1% compared to last year.