AMZN, WMT, COST Brace for Impact: Americans Slash Holiday Spending by 10% in 2025 Survey

Retail giants face holiday reckoning as consumer wallets snap shut

The Spending Freeze

Shoppers are pulling back hard—cutting budgets, skipping premium gifts, and prioritizing essentials. That 10% reduction isn't just a number—it's a warning shot across the bow of traditional retail.

Digital Assets Weather the Storm

While traditional retailers sweat, cryptocurrency markets continue their relentless march upward. Bitcoin's recent ATH and BNB's institutional adoption show where smart money flows when consumer confidence wobbles.

The New Reality

Consumers aren't just spending less—they're spending smarter. They're bypassing middlemen, hunting crypto deals, and treating fiat currency like the depreciating asset it is. Another holiday season, another reminder that traditional finance keeps getting coal in its stocking while digital assets deliver the real gifts.

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Most Americans have a downbeat outlook on the economy and expect to find higher prices on store shelves this December, according to an annual survey published by Deloitte. A majority of consumers (57%) said they expect the economy to weaken in 2026. That compares with 30% who expected a weaker economy ahead of the holiday shopping season in 2024.

Deloitte polled 4,000 respondents as part of its survey and said this year’s outlook among U.S. consumers is the most negative since the holiday sentiment poll began in 1997. The gloomy outlook doesn’t bode well for major U.S. retailers such as Amazon (AMZN), Walmart (WMT), and Costco (COST) that rely on a year-end sales boost during the holidays.

Less Spending

Seventy-seven percent of people surveyed said they expect higher prices on holiday items this year, up from 69% in 2024, according to Deloitte. Consequently, consumers plan to spend an average of $1,595 during the holidays this year, 10% less than they spent a year ago.

Worse, the lower anticipated spending cuts across all household income groups and nearly all generations, Deloitte found. Yet it was especially significant among younger shoppers. Gen Z consumers between the ages of 18 and 28 said they plan to spend an average of 34% less this holiday season. Millennials between the ages of 29 and 44 expect to spend an average of 13% less.

Is the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust a Buy?

The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) currently has a Moderate Buy rating among 504 Wall Street analysts. That rating is based on 417 Buy, 79 Hold, and eight Sell recommendations issued in the last three months. The average SPY price target of $747.93 implies 11.68% upside from current levels.