There has rarely been a more confusing time to be a holiday shopper.
Tariffs imposed by the Trump administration mean many imports are more expensive today than they were just a few months ago.
The government shutdown and fresh warning signals in the labor market are contributing to anxiety about the economy.
One way to relieve some of the uncertainty ahead of the holidays could be to buy your gifts early this year. And there are plenty of ways to do that as retailers kick off deals season.
Amazon Prime’s Big Deal Days, Target’s Circle Week, Best Buy’s Techtober Sale and Walmart Deals are just some of the national shopping events underway in October for the pre-pre-holiday shopper.
“I think the retailers are acknowledging that there is consumer demand to alleviate that stress and anxiety and shop earlier by launching events like Prime Big Deal Days in early October,” said Jack O’Leary, director of e-commerce strategic insights at NielsenIQ.
To get a better sense of how prices are changing week by week, NBC News has teamed up with web data infrastructure firm Bright Data to track the online retail prices of around 600 items across Amazon, Best Buy, Home Depot, Walmart and Target.
According to the latest data set, certain sectors are raising prices on more of their items than others.
Shopping for gifts in October could mean significant savings over buying the same things in two months.
It’s not all bad news. In a few departments, prices are rising less than you might expect, making these good options for last-minute shopping in December.
High cocoa prices forced candy makers like Hershey’s to charge more for nearly all of their chocolate this year.
In July, the company announced that it would raise prices for retail customers by the “low double digits” percentages.
“The increase we announced in July due to sustained, record high cocoa prices is it,” said a spokesperson for Hershey’s. “Implementation is about 90 days out from the announcement, so you’re likely seeing some of this starting to flow through. As a reminder, this does not impact Halloween seasonal candy.”
Hershey’s also told analysts it expects that costs for raw cocoa, which have subsided a bit in recent weeks, will nonetheless remain relatively high into next year.
In that environment, special deal days like the ones happening now could be a very good time to stock up on enough chocolate to get through to January.
It would be reasonable to assume that apparel prices have soared this year.
After all, the majority of clothes sold at U.S. retailers are manufactured overseas, many in countries that are caught up in a trade war with Washington.
But that’s not what the data shows.
NBC News’ tracker has picked up only a modest increase in retail prices since May. At Walmart, for example, less than 5% of the clothes we’re tracking are more expensive today than they were five months ago.
If current trends hold, most T-shirts at Walmart won’t cost a lot more in December than they did in October.
Few places have been affected more by tariffs than the toy aisle.
Last year, as many as 3 out of every 4 toys sold in the United States were manufactured in China. Since then, President Donald Trump’s tariffs on China have soared as high as 145% at the height of the trade war, before they settled at around 30%.
The CEOs of rival toy giants Mattel and Hasbro both said this spring that their companies were working to diversify global manufacturing so that less than 40% of their toys come from China by the end of the year.
But potentially not in time for the 2025 holiday season.
Among the more than 11,000 products for sale on Amazon that Bright Data monitors, prices have increased for 37% of the sample’s Mattel toys, and 41% of its toys from Hasbro.
Spokespeople for Amazon, Mattel and Hasbro didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.