Shoppers plan to spend a little less this holiday. Make your offer easy to say yes to.

Every fall someone tells you whether the holidays will be good or bad. This year the honest answer is "careful." People are still planning to spend. They are just planning to think harder about where it goes.

That is not bad news for a local business. It is a brief. A careful shopper rewards a clear offer and ignores a vague one.

What happened

On October 8, Circana released its 2026 holiday purchase intentions study. It surveyed 3,534 US consumers. The headline: holiday spending is expected to average $779 per person, compared with $796 last year.

A few more numbers from the same study:

• 74% of consumers expect to adopt money-saving behaviors, like buying items on promotion, hunting for deals, choosing store brands, and cutting back on some categories.
• More than one in five plan to spend more than $1,000 this season.
• Circana expects fourth-quarter holiday spending to land somewhere between a 1% decline and a 2.5% increase versus 2025.
• More than half plan to start shopping before Thanksgiving.

Kiara Barrett, head of global thought leadership at Circana, summed it up: "Consumers are not abandoning holiday spending, they're becoming increasingly purposeful about where and how they spend."

Source: Circana, Oct 8, 2026 (3,534 US consumers)

Two pieces of background, both from before this week. Earlier this fall, the Mastercard Economics Institute forecast that US retail sales will rise 5.5% year over year from November 1 to December 24, with online sales up 11%, as reported by Vision Monday. That can sit beside Circana's number without contradiction: one forecasts total retail dollars, the other asks people what they personally plan to spend. And AdRoll's Q3 State of Digital Advertising report found that display prospecting CPMs, the cost to show an ad to a thousand new people, fell 45.0% from the same period in 2025, for July 1 through September 8. That is AdRoll's own platform data for display ads, not a measure of every ad channel.

What it means for your business

You do not have to sell toys for this to matter. Circana found shoppers leaning toward wellness products, personalized gifts and experiences, and spending more on celebrating at home, entertaining and catered food. It also found that more than a third are canceling or delaying holiday travel because of cost. People staying home for the holidays still buy things close to home.

That is good news for a med spa selling gift cards, a gym selling a January starter pack, a salon selling a package, a restaurant group selling catering, or a plumber whose customers are about to host twenty people. The money is there. It is going to whoever makes the decision easy.

Here is how careful shoppers behave. They compare. They want to know exactly what they get and exactly what it costs. "Holiday specials, call for details" loses to "Three facials for $199, gift-wrapped, use by March." The second one answers the shopper's question before they ask it. We wrote about how to make the first seconds of an ad do that work in how to open an ad.

Timing matters too. If more than half of shoppers start before Thanksgiving, then the people you want in December are deciding in November. October is when you make sure they already know you. If display prospecting costs really are lower this fall, as AdRoll's data suggests for its platform, the cost of getting seen early may be lower than you expect. Check your own numbers before you assume it.

What to do this week

1. Write one holiday offer with a number in it

   What exactly do they get, what does it cost, and when can they use it. One offer beats five.

2. Make a giftable version

   Gift cards, packages, a starter month, a catering tray. Circana's shoppers are leaning toward experiences and wellness, which most local businesses already sell.

3. Make buying it take two minutes

   A clear page, a price, a buy or book button that works on a phone. Test it yourself before you spend a dollar sending people there.

4. Start building your audience in October

   Run awareness or video ads now to people near you, so your December ads reach people who have already seen you. Compare what it costs with what you paid last fall.

5. Plan your dates before Thanksgiving

   Decide when the offer starts, when it changes, and when it ends. Put them on the calendar now.

This is part of What You Missed, our weekly read on the marketing news that matters to business owners. See the full week: /blog/what-you-missed-week-of-october-5-2026

Sources

• Circana, "Circana's 2026 Holiday Study Finds Consumers Spending Selectively, Not Stepping Away," October 8, 2026. https://www.circana.com/post/circana-s-2026-holiday-study-finds-consumers-spending-selectively-not-stepping-away
• Vision Monday, "Holiday Retail Sales to See Biggest Growth in Four Years," October 5, 2026 (reporting the Mastercard Economics Institute holiday forecast). https://www.visionmonday.com/insights/article/holiday-retail-sales-to-see-biggest-growth-in-four-years/
• AdRoll, "State of Digital Advertising Report," 2026 Q3 highlights, undated (covers July 1 to September 8, 2026). https://www.adroll.com/state-of-digital-marketing-report