For Some, Holiday Shopping Season Has Already Begun
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Kids may still be sorting through their Halloween candy, but some retailers have already moved on to the holiday shopping season.
As CBS2's Elise Finch reported, there's a new push to jump start the shopping season that's already underway.
Venessa Manzano is not a fan of crowds, so she says she always gets her Christmas shopping down early.
"I don't want to go through going into the malls or the stores. Finding parking is such a pain," she said. "I usually order stuff online -- Amazon, you know take advantage of the free shipping."
Manzano is expecting her third child in December, so she says this year she's already purchased and wrapped all but one of the gifts on her list.
And some retailers are encouraging the rest of us to follow suit, Finch reported.
Amazon and Walmart are leading the charge to boost holiday shopping in November by advertising Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals nearly a month early.
"It just seems it's rushing the season," said Barbara Golden.
"I kind of have a rule, before Thanksgiving it's just not OK," said Charlie Albor.
"I wouldn't mind probably trying to investigate to see if I could find a deal. I mean it's only a month in advance," said Shantale Maurice.
Experts say retailers want people to do their holiday shopping as soon as possible so they don't squander their holiday budget on something else or get deterred from shopping altogether, Finch reported.
"Last year, the two weekends before Christmas was really bad weather and this definitely hurt in-store sales. So retailers are hedging their bets against bad weather by staggering their deals and starting them earlier and earlier," explained Mark LoCastro, with dealnews.com.
"I think the prices are pretty much standard. I don't see any big sales at this point," said Rebecca Saffer.
LoCastro, however, says it depends on what you're shopping for.
"We saw two TVs that were all-time price lows and a Nintendo 2 DS gaming system, again all-time price lows," he said.
LoCastro adds that true deals are not about the percentage off, but rather about paying less than the item has been sold for in the past, which should ideally be lower than the manufacturer's suggested retail price.
While early shopping may not appeal to you, one study shows nearly 30 percent of people plan to spend half of their holiday shopping budget by the end of this month.
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