Christmas 2025 is shaping up to be a season of cautious confidence — and coziness.

With thanks to this episode's sponsor Faire (https://faire.com/) Use the code 'GamePlan25' to claim 50% off and free shipping with your first order!

Hi, I'm Catherine Erdly.

In this episode of The Resilient Retail Game Plan, I'm sharing insights from my Forbes.com research, drawing on data from Shopify, Etsy, Klaviyo, LoyaltyLion and more to reveal what shoppers are really planning this festive season.

Discover why UK consumers are expected to spend over £91 billion, how AI is reshaping holiday shopping, and why “comfort, connection and coziness” are the emotional triggers driving this year’s trends.

I'll also break down what all this means for independent retailers — from loyalty strategies to smarter stock planning — so you can make this Christmas your most profitable yet.

Make sure you grab my freebie at http://resilientretailclub.com/freebie

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What's ahead for the biggest season of the year.

Welcome to the Resilient Retail Game Plan. I'm Catherine Edley and in the

next few minutes you're about to get powerful real world retail strategies

from insights shared both from my guests and myself, backed

up by my 25 years in the retail industry. Keep listening to

learn how to grow a thriving, profitable product business. Let's

jump in with this latest episode, I rounded up

my insights from my work as a Forbes.com contributor. I've been getting

quotes and research from Shopify, Fair,

Etsy, Klaviyo, Loyalty lion and many more, as

well as looking at the research in terms of what people believe is going

to be up ahead for Christmas this year. All of that to give you the

big picture on Christmas 2025 and more importantly, what that

means for your business. So let's start

with the top line numbers.

The spending outlook could be described as

cautiously confident. According to research

by Voucher Codes and global data 2025 festive report,

UK shoppers are forecast to spend around 91

billion pounds this Christmas. This is in fact

the biggest amount spent in any European country. So we

outspend almost everybody else by quite a significant mar.

And also important to note is that spend is expected

to be up slightly from last year. And by slightly I'm talking about a

couple of percentage points. But it's really worth bearing this number

in mind because one of the things that you may hear is

nobody's buying anymore, nobody's got any budget, all these kind of things,

and it can feel like, oh wow, is people just not going to be

spending this Christmas? But the data suggests that

not only are they going to be spending to the tune of 91 billion,

but they're actually going to be spending slightly more than last year.

So gifting is a huge piece of that and that's expected to be up

2.1% year on year. Food and drink is obviously another

huge category in Christmas and that is expected to be up around

3.6% year on year. Now, every year around

this time I do a Christmas predictions episode and I

look at all of the predicted outcomes for Christmas and I can

tell you that this is not an exact science. We definitely may see

things pan out slightly differently, but overall, broadly speaking, it's

worth saying that the sales are expected to be slightly up

on last year.

I think it's also really important to note that if we have a look at

the Consumer Confidence Index, the Consumer Confidence Index

is a survey that is done by the government

that is essentially Asking consumers, do you believe that the economy

will improve in the next six months? And then there's an index that shows

whether that percentage is going up or down. It's important

because lack of confidence is one of the

major impacts on purchasing. So people just don't spend as

much money when they're not feeling confident. Now if you look at the consumer

confidence index, I mean still see that more people are thinking that the

economy won't improve in the next six months than people will. So still in

the negatives, but compared to where it's been, if you look at the graph, you

can Google it and go check out the graph yourself, you'll see that currently the

consumer confidence index is actually okay

compared to previous years. We've had years where we've gone into Christmas with

a historically low consumer confidence. That was around the times of

things like for example, cost of living crisis, when everybody's

bills were going up constantly, when people were really worried about changes

to mortgage rates. Not to say that those fears have gone away, but it's not

as prevalent for right now. Now it never helps. They've got the budget

coming up at the end of November so people are waiting

on the wait and see mode. But at the moment what we

are seeing is we're going into Christmas with not people feeling like full of

confidence. But even if you look at it across five or even 10 years, we're

in not too bad of a place compared to previous years. So that's a real

positive. So we are seeing around 75% of

people planning to keep festive spend at under 800 pounds

and around 37% say they'll spend less than last

year. These numbers are always really interesting because people's

intentions and what they actually do are quite often different. But actually

if only 37% are saying that they'll spend less than last year, it does

suggest that cost cutting isn't the forefront of

consumers minds at this time. We're also seeing as

we have done year on year, upturn in usage of Buy

now pay later. So Clearpay, the Buy now pay later

provider who are a competitor to Klarna, for example, they're

saying around 35% of people are planning to use Buy now pay later

to spread costs. The top line message from the numbers is that

people are still spending, they're looking to spend. In general,

most people are thinking they'll spend slightly more than last year. But

budgeting is still really important. Planning, budgeting and

looking for value. So what does this actually mean for

you? So first of all, don't feel like no one's

going to spend anything. There's all still to pay for. There's good reason to suppose

that people are out there looking for the products that you sell, that they want

to have a good Christmas and that they want

to spend. So that's first thing to consider. The second

thing is that as we know, people are still thinking about value.

Value doesn't have to be about discounts. Often it can be about

clarity. Are you explaining to people how your

products really offer great value? If you want to know more about the

topic of good value and what customers really consider as good value, then go

check out episode number 260 where I talk about the value

triangle in more detail.

Fair to say that you want to be explaining to your customers how your

products are special. You can think about things like

smart spending options. So that could be bundles where they get a little bit of

a discount from buying multiple products, maybe small upgrades.

And we're going to talk a bit more about loyalty later on, but thinking about

how you could offer upgrades or additional items to your most

loyal customers. Another

theme that is coming up a lot when people are talking about

Christmas this year is the impact of AI. So

we are beginning to see much more of an impact

in AI shaping the customer journey. So

Shopify's holiday report suggests that 64% of

customers will use AI for at least one holiday shopping

task. And Klaviyo suggests that 56% will use it

to compare deals, plan purchases or get inspiration. So what

they're moving away from is search engines to chat based

discovery. So asking for example, what's a sustainable

candle brand made in the uk? And getting one

confident answer instead of dozens of listings. So

AI is deciding which brands to

showcase and that is based on clarity and

credibility more than keyword density. Now this is a

huge topic and I'm sure we could film multiple

episodes just on the topic of what this means for your online business, but it

is something for you to think about. It's different

from SEO, although the two somewhat do feed into each other.

It's all about whether or not AI can effectively find your business.

So SEO is ranking of results and

you're competing for clicks, you're competing for your position and the listings.

Whereas AI optimization is about being chosen as the

single trusted answer, which it's one of those things, it feels kind

of high stakes. If you're in there as the answer, then that can really

transform your business versus if you're not just not even going to appear because it

really wants to give just a small number of answers. A lot of

this is about trust. As I said, this is a huge topic, but

fundamentally it's something that you want to start thinking about. It may

well be that for many people who are busy in throws

of Q4 right now, this is something that you have to really get to grips

with in 2026, but definitely something that you want to be aware

of. So a few things to note, that things like reviews

are going to become more important because people are looking at product data,

reviews and then also your brand consistency, not just your

keywords. And I it favors

structured, high quality information and clear trust signals.

So if you've been thinking that you want to try and get more reviews for

your brand, it's only going to help you moving forward. As we see more

and more, not only AI looking for trustworthy brands, but also the

consumer being aware that there are more and more scam websites out there.

So you want to be thinking about all of the ways that you can really

build trust with your customer.

So the flip side of AI, a lot of the people that I got information

from, that I got either quotes or reports or data from,

they were all talking about AI. Yes, about the way that it's changing the

consumer journey. And I think we're going to be hearing a lot more about that

as we move into 2026, but also how

retailers can use AI themselves. So Shopify has

really gone big with a lot of AI features behind the scenes, but they were

talking, for example, particularly about stock forecasting and looking

to really protect your margin through using AI analytics.

And then of course, as we know, helping with

marketing. So drafting marketing copy or campaign ideas,

that was something the British Independent Retailers association was very

positive about. AI and the impact that it can have on for small retailers

and how it can help them really level the playing field. And there's also

a lot of chat about chatbots. So how can you use

automated chat and AI to help triage not all of your

customer queries, but can you make your life easier? Are there ways that you can

set up FAQs or helping customers get their tracking information,

things like that, which will take the pressure off you as a small business in

the run up to Christmas. What do you need to do about it?

Well, thinking about how AI can help you, thinking about how you can

use ChatGPT to help generate your ideas for your marketing.

What are there things that you just wouldn't get a chance to do if it

wasn't for AI, can you lean into that and then as I

said, being aware as we go into 2026 that we're going to be hearing a

lot more about how AI is selecting products

to show people and what we need to be doing to make sure that we're

one of the people who gets shown. So again, thinking about

building trust, what do you have that is showing the trust and the

authority of your business?

Moving on then, to talk a little bit more about shopping behavior. So what are

we seeing in terms of the timing

for Christmas? As soon as we hit

November, I immediately started getting emails from people about Black Friday

or people are now calling it like Black Friday Month and things like

that. So we are for sure going to see a

continuation of that with this Black Friday period stretching

out. So Klaviyo is actually talking about it being say a 16 day

window rather than that four day weekend black Friday through to

Cyber Monday. We're also seeing a spreading

out of Christmas purchasing. So both as I mentioned through the buy now,

pay later, but also we're seeing, seeing that people

did start shopping in October. Like a clear pay

estimated that around a third of British people started their

Christmas shopping by October. Shopify highlighted

as well that one in four were starting to shop before the fourth

quarter. And so I think it's a highlight

that the window is just getting bigger, which I don't think is

necessarily a bad thing. It can maybe feel a little frustrating if you are

a retailer. It'd be nice if it was maybe a little bit more

focused. But we're seeing the mixture of the people who want to start in

September and October because they want to help spread the cost

and the people who wake up on Christmas Eve and think, oh my goodness, I

haven't got anything for anybody and do a last minute mad dash

and we've got everybody in between. So

I think in a way it's possibly a good sign that people are starting to

shop earlier because it means that the overall spend isn't going down. It's

maybe just being spread throughout. So people

want, they want to have choice. And I

certainly have seen a lot of people launching their Christmas ranges earlier this year, which

I think is not a bad idea. You can almost stagger it into a

couple of different launches. Have your early launch to capture the people who want

to spread the cost and a secondary launch when people are feeling more

festive. The other thing as well is that people really do want

clarity. This comes up again and again in a lot of the research. So

Shopify talked about how things like clarity on

shipping and returns is really important. It all goes back to

that trust. Are you being really clear with your customers about if they order

it on this date, what date are they going to receive it? Are you

able to communicate your delivery cutoffs early and often?

And also if we're seeing more and more people

wanting to be slightly less intense, they don't want that chaos. They don't want the

oh my goodness, you've got to buy right now. You can be calm and consistent

with your messaging all the way through November and December to just keep

reminding people this is what you've got, this is what you've got to offer. And

really tapping into the fact that there are people who want to shop in a

peaceful, calm way rather than too much

frantic messaging.

Try thinking about shifting your messaging. Not so much about panic like

hurry, hurry to more like reassurance. Don't worry, we've got you covered.

This is when our dates are going to cut off. So if you want to

get by this date, make sure you've got it by then. And just keeping that

calm and consistent messaging and also not being afraid to talk about your

Christmas range as it goes throughout this long time period,

it can feel daunting because it can feel like Christmas is this one block that

you have to talk about repeatedly on repeat. But I think

don't forget that repetition creates trust and it

creates repetition creates recognition. If you

look at all of the holiday Christmas messaging from all of the big retailers, they

repeat them over and over and over again. I mean, how many thousands of

times are you going to see the John Lewis ad this Christmas? Probably more

than you could possibly count. So don't be afraid to repeat messaging

and don't be afraid to keep talking consistently about your Christmas

all the way through November and December to take into account the fact that there

are people entering their buying cycle at various different points,

product and style trends. This is a really fun part of the

Christmas research that I do. I would highly recommend that you

check out some of the free resources that you can get from lots of different

places. So Etsy do an excellent Christmas

forecast which has lots of visual themes.

You can head over to Etsy.com and usually under their press releases on their press

room you can find the Christmas forecast. Obviously if you're an Etsy

seller, they will no doubt have emailed it to you as well. Definitely go check

that out. Also fair.com wholesale marketplace they

also do the fair forecast and have some really great visuals. And what

makes these so nice is that you get to really understand

the mindset of the customer overall. And of course, not

every customer is going to want to buy into these trends and these esthetics.

But it's often really useful when you're thinking about your messaging and

thinking about your product selection. Ideally you would have

been thinking about your product selection earlier than this because for a lot of people

this is kind of last minute to make tweaks, but definitely thinking about what

the customer wants right now. So in terms of what

we're seeing as sectors, strong sectors from visual soft

data is things like home and gardens, sports and outdoors, jewelry

and watches. And then we're also seeing

lots of coziness. That's the best way that I can really

sum up everything that I'm seeing from both Fair, from Etsy and

from other sources as well. Well, so shoppers are

gravitating towards comfort, connection and small

celebrations. So for example, on Fair,

they are seeing Fondue sets up 300% with

board games and mahjong in particular flying out or

being things that people are really interested in. So cozy,

comfort, connection, big themes this year. You know,

it's not rocket science to work out why that is. As soon as things

outside the home feel scary and difficult, which,

let's face it, has been a lot of the news this year, then

people really like to swing the other way and focus

in on making their home their sanctuary and having those,

you know, it's about focusing on what matters. So Etsy are talking a lot

about nostalgia as well. So they're talking about one of my favorite

is called Nonna Holiday. So nostalgic kitchens, embroidered

linens, vintage bakeware. But they're also seeing things

like supper clubs. So elevated hosting

playhouse, colorful maximalism and lots of

nostalgia. As I said, nutcracker core, as they call it, ballet,

pastel nostalgia, velvet ribbons and toy soldier motifs.

What this means for you is think about the fact your Customer wants

those three Cs. They want coziness, they want comfort and they want

connection. So what do you have that really feeds

into that? Can you put an email out about ways to make your house cozy,

ways to be cozy this winter, ways to really

create a lovely atmosphere in your home, or thinking about other things that

might be important to them to, you know, stay at home, games, nights

or hosting or whatever it might be. You do not have to adopt

all of these or even some, some of these. It may not fit with your

business, but if you focus on those ideas around comfort and

connection, it can help you if you're just stuck on some ideas or you Want

to think of the ways to really connect with your customer then

comfort, connection, coziness would be great place to start.

So what is also working is focusing in on

loyalty. So episode 269 of this

podcast we spoke to Charlie Casey who's the CEO of of loyalty

software Loyalty Lines. If you want to delve into this topic in more detail then

go check out that episode. But

loyalty and trust, this is also a really important theme

this year. So 77% of shoppers are prioritizing

brands that they bought from before and 44% this

was interesting. A company called Antavo, they

did survey on loyalty trends and they said that 44% of customers are

open to paid loyalty tiers for exclusives or or perks.

So people are leaning into this idea of trust and

connection. So Shopify say that consumers

are rewarding brands that are fast, transparent and values driven.

So who you are as a business is as important as ever. Make sure that

you're talking to customers about that. Making sure that you are reaching out to the

people who've bought from you. Maybe they haven't bought from you for a while, but

could you re engage them? Because people are looking for people that

they trust. So make sure that you're nurturing existing customers

first. As I've talked about in episode 270 where I talk about planning

promotions for Black Friday, it is really important to think about any

offers that you're doing. Making sure that you are doing something extra and

special for your priority customers. What can you do?

Early access, small surprises for your best buyers and then also

purpose. So many people that I talk to who have small businesses,

they have some such strong purpose and vision for their business.

So many things that they really guiding principles that they use to run their

business. Make sure you're talking to your customers about that. Making sure

that they really understand who you are and what you stand for and it helps

with that connection.

In summary then what to take away from Christmas 2025?

Well people are spending. Don't get

pulled into the cycle of doom or the the real negative chatter

about oh nobody's got any money. We are definitely seeing

spending in line with last year or even slightly up. People are

beginning to turn to AI for guidance and this is only going to shape shopping

even more in 2026. So something to start thinking about

now. But the focus right now needs to be on selling, selling, selling.

So that may be a 2026 job. Nostalgia and

comfort things that are also just

really important emotional triggers for customers right now. So thinking about how

you can feed that into what you're saying to people about buying at

Christmas time. Also talking about leaning into

your loyalty. Making sure that you're aware that

loyalty and trust are really more than ever driving

repeat business in particular, but also driving purchasing. So thinking about all

of the ways that you can do demonstrate to your customer either how you can

connect with them and get that loyalty or how you can also build

trust. So what are the key things to take away from all of this? Number

one, as I said, people are spending. Number two, they want to be

cozy, comforted and connected. So make sure you're leaning into that

motion. Reward loyalty, take care of your best customers

and then think about how you can use AI to improve your business

and then how you may need to think about it moving forward into

2026. So it's not about being the loudest

necessarily at Christmas 2025. It's about being clear,

about being trustworthy, about being consistent with your

messaging and also being connected to

your best customers. Thank you so much for listening.

Don't forget, if you like, follow or subscribe, you'll be the first to

know about each new episode that will comes out on Thursday and I'd

love to know what you think thought about today's episode. What are you going to

be taking away for your business? Why not come over to Instagram? Say hi at

Resilient Retail Club and let me know.