Fifty-one percent of U.S. consumers plan to start holiday shopping before Thanksgiving, including two-thirds of early shoppers who plan to start in October, reported NPD Wednesday. “Holiday shopping has been on an earlier start trajectory since Thanksgiving Day store openings in 2014, and then further accelerated by last year’s pandemic shift of Amazon’s Prime Days to October and panic over shipping delays,” said Marshal Cohen, NPD chief retail industry adviser. “Holiday 2021 continues the early shopping trend, with the added layer of inventory concerns motivating many shoppers to grab what they want when they see it, instead of waiting for better deals later in the season.” Early shopping will give way to more inventory as it arrives for the “true holiday period,” making Thanksgiving weekend a “powerful one” for consumers who are “enthusiastic to return to the social aspects of Black Friday shopping activities,” Cohen said: “This holiday season’s exaggerated shopping peaks and valleys, and Cyber Monday, will be somewhat muted by the continuous flow of online shopping that has become more commonplace for the consumer.”

U.S. retail sales increased 5.4% year over year in September, up 11.5% from September 2019. Mastercard’s SpendingPulse tracker found. E-commerce sales grew even as consumers return to physical stores. The figures reflect “the ongoing demand for the convenience of digital commerce,” said Mastercard. SpendingPulse measures in-store and online retail sales across payment forms.

Global movie theaters started Q4 “with a bang,” led by Venom: Let There Be Carnage “ravaging” the U.S. box office at over $90 million, topping industry expectations by $30 million, Colliers analyst Steven Frankel wrote investors Monday. Venom’s $90 million North America opening weekend was the No. 2 domestic opening of an October movie in cinema history, reported AMC Entertainment Monday. The nearly 3.9 million Thursday-Sunday attendance at all AMC locations globally set a post-reopening weekend high, said the chain, with more than 2.4 million in the U.S. Imax, meanwhile, also benefited from No Time to Die, The Battle at Lake Changjin and Dune, which combined with Venom to deliver a $30 million weekend globally, said Frankel. The Addams Family 2 opened to a better-than-expected $18 million, said the analyst, but The Many Saints of New York “misfired,” collecting $5 million, “likely impacted by the film’s simultaneous release on HBO Max.” Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings added $6 million, contributing to a domestic total of $206.1 million with the top 10 releases 11% below 2019 levels, Frankel said. In the U.K., the Saturday box office for No Time to Die was the highest for any James Bond movie since the franchise launched in 1962, said AMC.

U.S. shoppers are continuing to spend, despite waning consumer confidence amid surging COVID-19 infections from the delta variant, said National Retail Federation Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz. With consumer spending generating roughly two-thirds of U.S. GDP, “all eyes are closely watching shoppers’ ability to drive the economy,” said Kleinhenz Friday. August retail sales jumped 12% despite the delta variant, he said. That brought January-August sales up 15% year over year, and on track to meet NRF’s forecast of between 10.5%-13.5% growth for the full year, he said: “That strong momentum shows there’s a big disconnect between consumer confidence and consumer spending at the moment and that the downdraft in confidence may well be a false scent.” Kleinhenz advises to “watch what consumers do, not what they say.” September consumer confidence declined for the third straight month and was down nearly 20 points from its recent peak in June, reported the Conference Board Tuesday (see 2109280020).

Nearly three in 10 U.S. consumers plan to spend more on holiday shopping than they did last year, despite unchanged feelings about their own personal financial situations and the state of the economy, reported NPD Thursday. NPD estimates holiday spending will rise 3% during the traditional November and December holiday shopping season and 5% when the season is expanded to include October and early January. Alongside the accelerated growth in online shopping, and other enduring COVID-19 pandemic-based lifestyle and shopping shifts, NPD surveys found a rise in consumer optimism about the holidays this year. “It’s going to be a hybrid holiday this year, blending the return of a celebratory feeling with the now normalized pandemic lifestyle,” said Marshal Cohen, NPD chief retail industry adviser. And 51% of consumers plan to start their holiday shopping before Thanksgiving, compared with 49% last year, said NPD: “The biggest increase in anticipated holiday spending is expected in consumer technology and home products, which have also been among the most popular retail sales categories throughout the pandemic.”

Consumer adoption of smart TVs jumped to 56% of U.S. broadband homes during this pandemic, with smart speaker adoption reaching 53%, reported Parks Associates Wednesday. Both had “significant growth since 2019,” it said. “TVs are now consumers’ most common video centerpiece in the home,” said analyst Paul Erickson. Tech “powerhouses” are “vying to own this point of entertainment aggregation -- and all the data that goes with it -- by controlling the platform itself,” he said. “Smart TVs are now seen as a key anchor device for ecosystem penetration into today’s broadband households.”

Consumer intentions on buying new TV sets rebounded slightly in September from August, even as consumer confidence declined for the third straight month and was down nearly 20 points from its recent peak in June, reported the Conference Board in preliminary monthly data Tuesday. Consumer analytics company Toluna canvassed 3,000 U.S. homes online for the board through Sept. 22, finding 11% plan to buy a new TV in the next six months, up from 10.4% in August and unchanged from 11% in September 2020, it said. The spread of COVID-19's delta “continued to dampen optimism” in September, said the board. Consumer confidence “is still high by historical levels,” but the three consecutive months of declines “suggest consumers have grown more cautious and are likely to curtail spending going forward,” it said.

Fraudulent robocalls will cost consumers $40 billion globally in 2022, rising from $31 billion this year, reported Juniper Research Monday. They can be threats to consumers “by encouraging the disclosure of personal information that fraudsters can use for identity theft,” it said. Fraudsters typically “impersonate a genuine brand or enterprise to gain the call recipient’s trust,” it said. Juniper predicts “emerging mitigation frameworks” will attempt to thwart fraudulent robocalls “by creating an ecosystem in which brands and enterprises are verified before the call is placed.” Brand authentication technologies are “a critical element of these frameworks,” but they will require standardization to be effective, said Juniper.

Spotify continues to expand its podcast listenership in the U.S., but Apple’s podcast business “has essentially stagnated,” reported eMarketer Tuesday. Spotify will have 28.2 million monthly podcast listeners by year-end, squeezing past Apple’s 28 million, a “razor-thin lead that will widen in the years to come,” the research firm projected. It estimates 40% of U.S. internet users will tune into podcasts this year at least once per month, about the same as it predicts for 2024. After “rapid listener growth” in podcast listening to date, growth will slow over the next few years, but Spotify’s podcast listener base will continue to rise through 2025, it said. The firm doesn’t provide forecasts for Amazon or Google but noted YouTube, Google Podcasts and Amazon Music are building out their platforms for the medium.

Best Buy is holding hiring events for the holiday season and beyond Thursday to help fill “thousands” of part-time, full-time and seasonal positions, it said Monday. The first-time event, during a widespread labor shortage, will include virtual hiring events for all Best Buy stores and home services teams across the country for jobs in sales, customer service, repair and installation. After submitting an application, qualified candidates will be asked to complete a virtual video interview to answer questions and say why they want to work for Best Buy. Its distribution centers are also hiring and will hold in-person hiring fairs Thursday. The company pushed its benefits package including $15 hourly starting pay, an employee discount on products and services, college tuition discounts at certain schools, and savings on fitness memberships and on insurance plans “from home and auto to pet coverage.” Last week, Amazon said a Sept. 1 career day it hosted drew over 1 million job applications from 170 countries and more than half a million in the U.S. Popular positions sought included tech jobs in software development, IT, support and operations management. Amazon has 40,000 open corporate and tech roles and 125,000 open jobs in its operations network, it said. Amazon recruiters offered 30,000 individual career coaching sessions with participants whether they wanted to work at Amazon or elsewhere, it said.