Holiday shopping season is well underway — particularly online

Drill down into the Census Bureau’s October retail and food sales report, specifically into a spending category called nonstore retailers — basically an antiquated term for online shopping — and you’ll see that Americans spent 7% more on nonstore retail last month compared to a year prior. That’s the biggest year-over-year jump among the spending categories Census tracks.

Olivia Johnson recently noticed a new aesthetic on Dick’s Sporting Goods’ website when she was shopping for a pair of Air Jordans.

“I think it was, like, green streamers on there with red ornaments,” she said.

Johnson researches retail and consumer science at the University of Houston. She said for online retail, the all-important holiday season now basically starts Oct. 1.

That’s partly because putting a Santa gif on your website is a lot easier than finding an actual employee willing to let 5-year-olds tug on their fake beard all day, not to mention clearing the showroom for that tree and chair.

“In stores, you have to set the store right, you have to tell a story with your merchandising, but you have the ability in these online spaces to start that holiday shopping earlier,” she said.

Plus, online retailers have all kinds of personalized data to target holiday early birds. Like, “Hey, we noticed you’re one of those bizarre people who bought an Advent calendar before Halloween last year. Want another one?”

Declan Gargan at S&P Global Ratings said many retailers doubled down on online promotions in October as a way to grab attention.

This fall, those commercials enticing you to come back to the store had competition. “A lot of that kind of advertising gets crowded out by a lot of the political advertising. So we’re just seeing retailers do what they can to signal value,” he said.

And for inflation-weary consumers, it’s often easier to bargain hunt online.

“In a high-priced environment where consumers have more financial difficulties, they’re going to want to compare different prices for similar goods. And doing that online is of course much easier,” said Gregory Daco, an economist with EY.

Although no matter how cheap they might be or jolly the advertisements, some of us are just not going to buy holiday gifts before November.