In-Store Shopping Set to Beat Online This Holiday Season

What happened

Alchemer's 2026 Holiday Shopper Report finds that U.S. consumers expect to do more of their holiday shopping in physical stores than online this year, a reversal of the online-first pattern that has dominated recent holiday seasons. The research points to tighter household budgets as a key factor shaping this shift, with shoppers reporting more cautious spending plans overall.

According to the findings covered by CustomerThink, this budget pressure is changing how consumers approach the season: rather than defaulting to e-commerce for convenience, many are choosing to shop in person, suggesting a renewed weight on tactile, immediate and value-conscious buying decisions.

Why it matters

For retailers, the finding reframes where the real battle for holiday revenue will be fought. If in-store traffic is set to outpace online browsing, the physical store experience — staffing, checkout speed, product availability, and the ability to help a budget-conscious shopper make a confident decision on the spot — becomes the primary lever for converting holiday footfall into sales.

This has direct implications for experience and operations leaders: investment that has flowed toward digital storefronts and online personalisation may need rebalancing toward frontline staff training, in-store inventory visibility and point-of-sale friction reduction. A shopper who is watching every dollar is less forgiving of a slow queue, an out-of-stock item or an unhelpful associate — each of these moments carries more weight when the visit itself represents a deliberate, budget-driven choice rather than a habitual one.

The Renascence take

The headline finding is not simply "shoppers prefer stores" — it is that financial caution is pushing people back toward channels where they can control and verify value before committing to a purchase. That is a behavioural signal, not just a channel preference.

When budgets tighten, shoppers seek certainty, and certainty is easier to find under fluorescent lights than in a browser tab — you can touch the product, ask a question, and walk out with nothing owed to a return label. Retailers who read this only as "the store is back" will overinvest in footfall and underinvest in the moments that actually earn trust once the customer is standing at the shelf. The real opportunity is to treat every in-store interaction this season as a small trust transaction: arm staff to answer value and comparison questions confidently, make prices and promotions unambiguous at first glance, and remove any friction that makes a cautious shopper second-guess the decision they've already worked hard to make. Get that right, and the store becomes the channel that converts hesitation into loyalty — not just the one that absorbs the traffic.