With global supply chains still facing monumental backlogs, gearing up for the holidays might look a bit different this year for some shoppers than it has in years past. In this segment of Backstage Pass, recorded on Nov. 5, Fool contributors Toby Bordelon, Vicki Hutchison, and Rachel Warren discuss their shopping strategies this holiday season.
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Toby Bordelon: On those supply chain issues that I just briefly mentioned, we've got multiple industry experts and business leaders in all over the place, in different industries saying they expect the issues to continue through the holiday season into early 2022 at least.
We're in November now, guys, Halloween's over, we're in November. Traditionally, we start our holiday shopping, at least in this country around Thanksgiving, Black Friday, the day of Thanksgiving. Will that be too late this year? Will the supply chain challenge us?
Here's a question for you. Is there something in your holiday lists for the season, for yourself or someone else that you just got to have. You got to get it and you're thinking, I better get it before Thanksgiving or at least order before Thanksgiving if I want to get here in time for the holidays. You got to start earlier. Rachel.
Rachel Warren: [laughs] This is actually a great question because I normally, in normal years, I'm a very last minute Christmas shopper. I have been known many a time to wait until perhaps two days before Christmas, [laughs] until I do my Christmas shopping.
Which clearly is not the best plan for this year. I will be making other arrangements. [laughs] I don't have one thing in particular. For myself, I know I'm hoping to get some new luggage because I travel a lot and my luggage is literally falling apart.
I'm hoping to get some before the year is out. I think the important takeaway here is I don't think everything is going to be off the store shelves. I do think perhaps if you're like me and you tend to wait until the last minute and maybe I get stressed and I wait and I'm like, "No, I have time."
Then it's the day before Christmas until you Christmas shop. Perhaps this is not the year [laughs] to do that. That's just my thoughts there.
Toby Bordelon: What do you think, Vicki?
Vicki Hutchison: I'm not a last minute shopper. Tend to be an early shopper, but I am thinking that maybe a little earlier, is better. I am also thinking people rave about Etsy. That maybe this is the year to be more creative and go out and look for something that maybe is built closer to where I live and not shipped overseas on a boat [laughs]. We'll see.
Toby Bordelon: Yeah. I don't know, I've been all over the place. Amazon have been a saving grace for the last minute shopper. Two-day shipping boom. I wouldn't take that to the bank this year. I would maybe do that earlier.
For us one thing we're doing this year, we're taking the kids to Legoland. We did that before and now our youngest is actually old enough to ride all the rides. He's excited about that. This makes it easy because I can say part of your present is you get to go to the gift shop and pick out some Legos, I don't have to worry about it.
Presumably, the good people have Legoland, will make sure they're gift shop shelves are stocked for people coming in for the holidays. We'll hope so.
I'm also trying to get myself a new Xbox. I've been trying to do that since last holiday season, Microsoft. I'm hoping that we have, at least sorted through those supply chain issues to some degree we've had a year. Maybe that's going to happen. We will see.
