Buckle up for some bumpy holiday trends this shopping season! With the apparent bifurcated K-shaped economy, socioeconomic pressures and costs of everything going thru the roof, the accounting and professional services firm PwC published this telling round-up of retail trends that are set to impact us all. And while we as place management professionals can only do so much to “lead a ratepayer to water…”, this season’s quirky and unprecedented pressures underscore the need to do more to assist your district’s businesses this year. The 2025 holiday shopping season presents a complex picture that place management professionals should understand when planning activations and tenant support strategies. In a nutshell, here are the top takeaways:
The Big Shift: Overall holiday spending is expected to decline 5% from 2024 to $1,552 per person, marking the first notable drop since 2020. However, this masks important generational divides. Gen Z plans to cut spending by 23%, while baby boomers expect to increase theirs by 5%.
Critical Timeline: Nearly 40% of all holiday gift spending will occur during the five-day period from Thanksgiving (Nov 27) through Cyber Monday (Dec 1), with 80% of budgets spent by Cyber Monday’s end. This compressed calendar creates urgency for early activations.
Channel Balance: For the first time, shopping channels have reached near-parity, with 51% planning online marketplace purchases and 53% shopping in person. Shoppers cite product interaction (48%), promotions (38%), and holiday atmosphere (25%) as key in-store drivers.
Experience Matters: Despite budget constraints, 72% plan home-cooked gatherings, and 44% still intend to travel. Consumable gifts are trending up, reflecting a focus on meaningful, practical gifting over material goods.
Value + Flexibility: Payment diversity is expanding (credit cards up to 52%, cash at 48%), and 39% want buy-online-pickup-in-store options, particularly Gen Z and millennials seeking same-day fulfillment.
For place managers, the message is clear. Help your ratepayers create compelling in-person experiences that blend value, convenience, and atmosphere while recognizing that different generations require distinct approaches.
And if you haven’t done audience research and segmentation to develop your own custom Personas, give us a shout, because it means all the difference in the world when you’re trying to speak to multiple audiences with compound goals and objectives.
Photo credit: by Megan Bucknall on Unsplash
The recently rebranded Downtown DC BID is going BIG this holiday season. They’re gunning for a Guinness World Record — for smooching! Called “National Kiss under the National Mistletoe”, the org aims to break the current world record of 488 kissing couples liplocked for at least seven seconds. Sounds doable, right? This planned group smooch requires consent (ofc), and you must register yourself and your necking partner in advance. The three-hour event will take place on December 13th beneath a larger-than-life seasonal installation with greens, blooms, ornaments, and, naturally, mistletoe, hoisted an impressive 30 feet in the air above the crowd. Add in drinks, nosh, musical performances, and hundreds of happy heavy-petters, and you’ve got a recipe for success (or a mild outbreak of mono), but we jest. If you’re in the capitol region, sign up and help Downtown DC make “kiss-story” this holiday!
Photo credit: by Stella St. Clair on Unsplash
… that a 1970s Danish social protest countering Christmastime materialism was the genesis for bad Santas all over the globe? This piece from Mother Jones had us literally gagging 🤢over the insipid and irreverently counterintuitive movement that pits drunk-ass, coal-bearing Kris Kringles against horrified children and jaw-dropped bystanders.
What began as Danish anarchists trolling department stores in 1974 has metastasized into the annual plague we now call SantaCon. After inspiring San Francisco’s Cacophony Society to stage mock hangings and crash strip clubs in the ’90s, the event has since devolved into thousands of suburban bridge-and-tunnel types cosplaying as “slutty elves” while vomiting through Manhattan. A forthcoming documentary chronicles the tragic evolution from counterculture protest to fraternity fundraiser — a transformation so complete that one founder literally held a funeral for it. Bars now institute “No Santas” policies like they’re banning a biohazard. The NYC SantaCon website has scrubbed all political history and essentially admits the whole thing is meaningless: “Because it’s fun. That is all.” The counter-consumer collective now positions itself as, “…a charitable, non-political, nonsensical Santa Claus convention that happens once a year to fund art & spread absurdist joy.” Mother Jones apologized in 2015 for accidentally inspiring this yearly red menace, and all we can say is, at least the MTA bans alcohol now. Ho ho ho, you sloppy hoes!
Photo credit: by jack levick on Unsplash
From ice cream trucks to photobooths on wheels, to gaming trailers to food trucks and beyond, anything that can travel to your downtown and bring joy is good business in our book. You may remember us telling you about Coliseum Central’s Sensory Activation Vehicle (SAV) back in September — and now another specialized vehicle is vroom-vrooming onto our radar with The Concert Truck. This ingenious automobile is a traveling music venue that presents concerts across the country and redefines how people experience live music. By converting a box truck into a fully equipped mobile concert hall, complete with lights, a sound system, and a grand piano, The Concert Truck brings world-class classical music directly into city streets, festivals, schools, neighborhoods, parks, and other everyday spaces. Add a touch of class to your next signature event with this uncanny concert venue on the go-go-gooooo!
Photo credit: by Claude Gabriel on Unsplash
Embrace your nerds. You’re gonna need them. Call them nerds. Call them PT geeks. Call them transit advocates — it’s your audience and your nomenclature, so you know best, but what San Francisco is doing here is a time-tested strategy.
A million years ago, before Bright Brothers officially existed, we worked with an upscale fast-casual dining concept that was planning to open a beer-centric bar across the street. We knew we had super-users and elite advocates online and in our social feeds who were beer nerds. So we opened the kimono and invited in twelve locals and mega-regulars with very specific knowledge about the local community, beer providers, preferences, and pairings…etc. We made them feel special with a special event where we comped them food and drink in exchange for intel. We asked them what THEY wanted to see in a new beer bar, and what they didn’t want or like. In essence, we did an on-the-ground focus group and turned our fans into raving advocates for the new beer-centric concept — MONTHS before it even launched.
Why was this important?
- Broad-ranging insights gleaned
- Competitive analysis from experienced locals
- We identified strategic relationships for providers, brewers, and local goods suppliers
- The intake session then drove the vibe and many brand attributes of the new beer bar. One of our favorite outcomes was a snarky Happy Hour special that consisted of a can of PBR, a shot of well whisky, and one single cigarette perched perfectly between the beer’s pull tab. Smokers or not, our customers LOVED it. It showed originality, inventiveness, and spoke directly to our base in an irreverent and funky way that immediately built brand equity with the community.
- But most importantly, we built a proto fanbase pre-launch, so right outta the gate we had a dozen local advocates helping us promote the new business in their socials with fans and followers.
What San Francisco is doing here is the same, but for transit. The internet is a lot of things, but it also empowers us as brand marketers to have literal one-on-one (or twelve-on-one, as it were) conversations about what really matters most to our strongest advocates. By listening, learning, and empowering our fans, we can all be better at what we do and be better for the communities we serve.
Photo credit: by Corey Agopian on Unsplash
“I did not create a pub crawl with people who barf in playgrounds.” — Mo, an early New York Santacon participant.
