What do a new father, 22-year old twin sisters and best friends of more than 50 years have in common? Their holiday shopping lists are “drastically” changing as a result of inflation.
Their budgetary decisions played out at the Robert Plante Greenhouses’ annual holiday market recently in Navan.
“We’ve been friends for 50 years,” said Irene Fagan, one half a shopping duo, “and we just decided two aisles ago that we weren’t buying Christmas gifts for the first time for each other.”
Fagan isn’t alone in making this kind of decision. Sixty-one per cent of Canadians are changing their holiday spending, with 41 per cent planning to cut their spending entirely, according to a BMO Survey released Nov. 14.
The changes are affecting local businesses and consumers.
“We mostly shop for deals, and we try to get people Christmas presents that they need … not necessarily want,” Valerie Lamerise-Hitchen said. She’s 22, living and sharing expenses with her twin sister.
On the other side of the table, local vendors said they are seeing similar patterns.
Nelissa Chaudry, owner of “SprouTmagik,” a ceramics and plant business, said she sells decorative and practical items. These days more customers are opting for the latter.
“A lot of people are a little bit penny-pinching, in a sense, so they’re not going for decorative things, they’re going for functional,” she said.
Rick Sideroff crafts pens and household items from exotic wood and acrylic for his business “Roff Cut Pens.” He’s noticed more “restrictive wallets” and a drop in sales.
“My stuff is not cheap. It’s very unique,” he said.
“When people hear the prices, they have a tendency to back away and say, ‘I’m going to think about it, I’ll come back later.’ About 60 per cent of the time they don’t come back.”
Chaudry and Sideroff still get most of their sales during the holiday season. This year has been no different, Sideroff said, adding he was “doing fairly well.”
Chaudry chalks it up to holiday mindset. “I think people are in a spending mode and a gift-giving mode,” she said.
The average cost of living in Ottawa for a single person, including rent, is $2,096 a month, according to Living Cost.Org.
There is a bright side to the BMO survey: it indicates fewer people are cutting back compared to the previous three years.
Despite the comparative numbers, many still see the holidays as a balancing act.
Sarmad Abdi, father to a six-month-old, said his budget concerns go beyond just the holidays.
Abdi questioned what he can include in his holiday budget this year versus past years, now that he’s a father. “Now it’s more, OK, we have to save up for our kid as well, right. There’s formula, there’s clothes, there’s pictures with Santa.”
“There’s a lot of variables at play for me,” Abdi said.
Marlena Floyd, a retired woman with a big family, is making changes too because of holiday pressures.
“I’ve got two kids – two grown ups – and we’ve decided to put a [spending] cap, a limit this year, which is the first time we’ve ever done that.”
Radovan Vadovic, an associate professor in Carleton University’s economics department, said consumers’ expectations are often what drives their behaviour. Media, conversations and casual day-to-day interactions play a “powerful” role in shaping how people choose to shop.
“If you expect prices to rise, you change how you spend,” he said. “People become more cautious with their money when inflation becomes a topic of everyday conversation.”
Kristen Tillberg, the co-owner of “Pink Soap Works,” has 10 years of experience as a small business owner. She said managing the business used to be easier.
“It feels a bit gloomy actually, it feels a bit daunting when I think of where we were 10 years ago when we started and how do we keep up as a small business,” she said.
She also said small businesses are always having to adapt, balancing the many changes over the years, from COVID to postal strikes. Everyone is affected.
“We are always having to change, we are always having to evolve.”
