How Holiday Shopping Happens in a Pandemic

Photo of socially distanced shoppers waiting to enter store.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

published 24 November 2020

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David Muhlbaum: Like so many things in 2020, Black Friday and its associated discounts will be different this year. DealNews consumer analyst Julie Ramhold joins us to talk about how to find deals as we head into the holidays. We'll also talk about which of Joe Biden's campaign promises he will actually be able to achieve as president and dig deep to find things to be thankful for this year. That's all ahead on this episode of Your Money's Worth. Stick around.

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Sandy Block: Yeah, and there's still a lot of uncertainty about the Senate. That is, the next few months are going to be pretty wild, given that the exact number of senators who can vote in the narrowly divided Senate are going to move around a bit. One factor we saw this week was COVID, Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley got it, and so won't be around for a key vote on a new and controversial appointee to the Federal Reserve. The other is that both of the Senate seats in Georgia went to a runoff and that election day isn't until January of next year. If both of those races go to the Democrats, they'll get control of the Senate. Oh, and Mark Kelly, the Arizona Democrat who defeated Martha McSally for John McCain's Senate seat, he gets to start in December rather than January with the rest of the Congress.

Sandy Block: Those have a better shot and the chances of tax cuts for lower and middle income Americans are somewhat better, especially if the economy's recovery continues to leave those people behind. Biden wants to expand the Child and Dependent Care Credit, and refundable child credit, both of which have bipartisan support. He also hopes to create a new tax credit for people who provide long-term care to their elderly relatives and to give a new tax break to first time home buyers and renters and Republicans like cutting taxes.

David Muhlbaum: Well, on the campaign trail, Biden made a lot of noises about student loan forgiveness, well, he wasn't the only candidate. This is a really hot issue now, and it looks like it's going to come to a head before he's even inaugurated. The forbearance program for student loan debt that went into effect at the start of the pandemic, that's about to run out at the end of the year. And my understanding is that program was really popular. There was only a small fraction of people who continue to pay down their loans.

Sandy Block: Yeah. Which is totally understandable because there was no interest accrued or any penalty for not paying your loans. So you could make an argument that you could save a little bit of money by paying them, but most people didn't. But once again we have to get Congress involved. Assuming they want to get involved, they could extend the forbearance program, essentially deferring payments that would otherwise come due on January 1st. They could go further and institute some actual debt forgiveness, which is the proposal Biden and others were suggesting. Congressional Democrats have a proposal for $10,000 of forgiveness, that seems like the number Biden is tying himself to if Congress fails to pass that, there's also a chance that the Biden administration could try and do that by executive order. There's a lot of back and forth about whether they could, but it's an interesting thought.

David Muhlbaum: Yeah, but it would be messy, politically, administratively, all that, especially if they had to go back and you had this period between the inauguration and January 1st. Good Lord. So,I know plenty of people owe well more than $10,000 in student debt, but here's a hypothetical: Let's say I owe about that much. And let's say I was one of that small fraction of people, I think it's about 22% who continued to pay down their debt, who continued to make payments during the forbearance this year. Now, if there's a $10,000 forgiveness, well, those payments I made, was I just throwing my money away?

Sandy Block: That's one of the reasons this is such a knotty issue because it's... and knotty as in K-N-O-T-T-Y not naughty, but because it's not just those people, it's anybody who really worked, maybe drained their savings or worked over time to pay off their debt. And maybe they're debt free and made very big sacrifices to get there. And now all these other kids are getting $10,000 right off the top. That's one of the things you could see people arguing about, other is that it's not progressive. And that if everybody gets $10,000 off, maybe some families that just took out the loan because they wanted greater cashflow while their kid was in college, they get a $10,000 break too. I can see all kinds of problems there.

David Muhlbaum: Right. And if the number goes up, I've heard $50,000 thrown out. There is an argument that it's less progressive because the people who have that amount of debt, at least some of them, in theory, in part, they should be the ones best prepared to pay it off because they got that degree to let them be a higher earner and retire that debt. Well, okay. Okay. We're getting a little off topic, but...

Julie Ramhold: So the short answer is that it's lasting longer. The store's rolled out all their deals early or most of them did, a lot of the big retailers did anyway. They rolled out their deals early, they're running it for the whole month of November and the deals are lasting longer too, but we're also seeing a bigger push for them to be online only. So the really good deals, the ones that you expect to be in store only doorbusters are not seeing those this year. We're seeing them online instead. And most stores have been rolling these deals out little by little until, next week is supposed to be the big event with all their best ones.

Julie Ramhold: I guess it depends on how you look at it. So there's still going to be Cyber Monday deals. The retailers aren't ignoring it this year or anything like that, but with a bigger push to shop online, it just feels like a Cyber holiday to me in general. So it'll still be there. There will still be deals, but all of November feels like Cyber holiday shopping to me. So I'm just like, the deals are there. Go ahead and go shop.

Julie Ramhold: So one thing we've seen pretty consistently being offered throughout the month is TV deals actually. There was this really big question when we found out that retailers were going to be doing this elongated event on whether or not the deals would be good, or if they would be like these okay deals that would lead up to Black Friday. And that would still be when we see the best savings, but that hasn't been the case. For sure. I can say Walmart rolled out a 55 inch Smart TV during its second event of the month for $148. And I'm just like, how do you beat $148 for a 55 inch TV? Well, it's a 70 inch TV that coming for Black Friday next week and it's going to be $478, I think.

Julie Ramhold: One of the big things we're seeing in the ads, especially now that they're rolling out on a more consistent basis is that video game consoles are just not on sale this year. So it's to be expected, the Xbox Series X just came out on the 10th and then the PlayStation 5 came out two days later on the 12th. So those are really new. Obviously it's too soon to expect discounts on those, but even for the Nintendo Switch and the Nintendo Switch Lite, which have been out for at least a year now, the Nintendo Switch has been out longer obviously, but the Switch Lite came out last year. The prices we're seeing at list prices, even if there's a bundle and we are seeing some bundles for the Nintendo Switch that include Mario Kart 8, which is a port. So it's not even a specifically a Switch game, it was ported over.

Julie Ramhold: Even those are running for list price. So it's very weird to see stuff that we totally thought we were going to see discounts on. And it's like, no, they're in really high demand. We ran into issues earlier this year with a Nintendo Switch and availability there. And I think it's gotten better, but when it comes to things like the new X-Box and the new PlayStation, I'm basically like, if you want to go ahead and spend the money and you can get your hands on one, just go ahead and do it.

Julie Ramhold: Exactly. And they were going for a reasonable price. But for some reason it was just the thing to have that year. So all of a sudden they start selling out like crazy. And then when you do see them, they're marked up to this huge degree. And the year after that, it was the little fingerlings toys. And that was even more bizarre because those things are $15 regular price anyway. So to see them suddenly selling out and then being resold on eBay and stuff like that at a huge markup, I just couldn't wrap my head around it. So the thing is that we haven't seen that hype, I guess, since those two things. So every year, Lego sets are really big, Mattel stuff like Barbie sets are really big. But this year, what we're looking at is stuff anything having to do with The Mandalorian, but particularly if it has to do with The Child, AKA Baby Yoda. We expect all that to be crazy.

David Muhlbaum: Festivus! Seinfeld! Remember Frank Constanza had a revelation, as he fought a fellow shopper for the last doll on the shelves ahead of Christmas. "As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way. And out of that a new holiday was born, a Festivus for the rest of us!" The aluminum pole, the airing of grievances, the feats of strength. You should totally come over, Sandy.

Julie Ramhold: Traditionally, yeah, they do. Part of the issue with a traditional Black Friday and holiday shopping sale is that we see these deals that are touted as limited time only. You got to get there at 5:00 a.m. and it's only good until seven or something like that. So you really try to bring in the shoppers with that language. And this year, that's not really the case, we're seeing these deals last a little bit longer. Walmart has been running its events throughout the month and basically having... They kick off online on a Wednesday and then a few days later they'll move to in store. So you have more time to get them, but that doesn't mean that you should wait, because these are good deals. They're still crashing sites in some cases with people trying to snag them online so they don't have to go in store. So a good deal is hard to beat no matter what time of year. And if you think it's going to sell out, you need to know when it goes live so that you can go ahead and grab it before it does.

Julie Ramhold: I would say one, it depends on when you're going. If you're like, I can do all of this on Black Friday and be good. I would say don't risk it. A lot of the stores, even for their absolute Black Friday sales are starting them early. And the closer we get to December and to the holidays in general, you're going to run into risk of things selling out. And also we have shipping delays this year. So if you think you can shop online and be like, Oh, it'll be fine. No, we're expecting major shipping delays this year to the point where we're advising people. If you're shipping a gift, it's best to try to buy it online and have it sent directly to your recipient rather than having it sent to you first. And if you think that it's going to be late, if there's even the slightest chance that it could be late, make a backup plan, take a picture of the receipt or get a greeting card to be like, this is what you're getting eventually.

Julie Ramhold: So it's going to depend on the retailer. We're still waiting to see what they lay out for their shipping deadlines this year. Ordinarily, we see this nice lead up to the holidays with, oh, "December 19th. You can still get it in time for Christmas" and things like that. And there's already at least one retailer saying that December 14th is the last day they're going to guarantee that if you order then you should have it by Christmas.

Julie Ramhold: That's honestly what I'm expecting. I'm expecting because they've been warning about these shipping delays for so long. When Prime Day rolled around in October this year, Amazon already had its holiday language up on the site and they were already saying like, there's going to be shipping delays. So you should shop now. And that's just the whole narrative that all the retailers have been picking up.

David Muhlbaum: Yeah. Yeah. The dumpster fire, stick a fork in it. No, it's low hanging fruit. You're right. Everybody dumps on 2020; it's easy. Conversely, what's really hard is finding things to be thankful for this year, but it's a good exercise. Maybe even more important than ever. And in fact, I can start with one thing I'm thankful for. I'm thankful I did not have to come up with a list of things to be thankful for.

David Muhlbaum: This is actually a Kiplinger holiday tradition of sorts that dates back to one of my first bosses here, Doug Harbrecht. One of the good guys, who has a deeply optimistic streak in him and once a year, he'd go through our output here at Kiplinger and around Thanksgiving put together a list of things to be thankful for. Robert Long, the general manager of kiplinger.com has taken over this task.

David Muhlbaum: Well, I'd say all of them because he's my boss, but we don't have time to get to them all. You can go to kiplinger.com and see things to be thankful for 2020 in its entirety. My favorite has got to be the huge progress we've seen in the last few weeks toward developing an effective COVID-19 vaccine. Yes, of course there's a lot of work still to be done, but we've got two big drug makers whose candidates are showing 95% effectiveness and some other drug makers working as well. So, come on science!

Sandy Block: Well, I'd like to raise a lonely Thanksgiving glass to the stock market volatility and all. The old bull market finally kicked it in March. But the bear market that followed, shaving off 34% of the S&P, was gone before you even knew it was there. And here it's almost Thanksgiving week and investors are sitting on a return, including dividends, of 61% from the low and 12% for the year. Not shabby for a country with monumental public health and economic challenges. This is a forward-looking market, and it sees better days ahead.

Sandy Block: Well, you go right ahead. Now, because I'm the tax person, I'm also going to mention one about taxes, which is not something people usually are thankful for, but the IRS has made a significant change for those people who like to go back and make sure they got every break. I'm talking here about amending a return, and that has gotten significantly easier. Starting with the 2019 tax year, you can file Form 1040-X, the document used to amend tax returns electronically. In the past, you had to submit the form by mail, which was a big hassle and took time. You could use tax software to fill out the form, but you still had to print it out and put a stamp on it and mail it in. You don't have to do that anymore.

David Muhlbaum: And that will just about do it for this episode of Your Money's Worth. I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you'll sign up for more, if you haven't already, wherever you get your podcasts. And when you do, please give us a rating and review. We've mentioned some links and content in our show to see them and for more great Kiplinger content on the topics we discussed, visit kiplinger.com/podcast. You can get full transcripts there as well. And if you're still here, because what you really want to do is give us a piece of your mind. You can stay connected with Kiplinger on Twitter, Facebook, or by emailing us at podcast@kiplinger.com. Thanks for listening.

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Block joined Kiplinger in June 2012 from USA Today, where she was a reporter and personal finance columnist for more than 15 years. Prior to that, she worked for the Akron Beacon-Journal and Dow Jones Newswires. In 1993, she was a Knight-Bagehot fellow in economics and business journalism at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She has a BA in communications from Bethany College in Bethany, W.Va.