A new poll finds that Virginians are spending less this holiday season as they weigh economic concerns and elevated prices.
Sarah Wells is feeling the burden of high prices this holiday season, both as a mom shopping for her two kids and as a small business owner struggling under the Trump administration’s tariffs.
“I feel a little more wary about pricing as a consumer because I know everyone’s really struggling,” Wells, a Fairfax resident, said in an interview.
Meanwhile, revenue for her thirteen-year-old breast pump bags business, Sarah Wells Bags, is down significantly this year because President Donald Trump’s tariffs have raised costs and depleted her inventory.
“I’m showing that very price sensitivity that I’m concerned about as a business owner that I see consumers showing right now,” Wells said. “So I think it does go both ways.”
Wells isn’t the only Virginian concerned about elevated prices.
Shoppers in Virginia plan to spend about 5% less this holiday season compared with a year ago in response to higher prices and economic uncertainty, according to polling from Roanoke College.
Virginians plan to spend an average of $1,035 this holiday season, mostly on gifts and less on personal purchases for things like apparel and electronics, the poll found.
The spending pullback and emphasis on gift giving rather than personal items suggests Virginia shoppers are balancing optimism about the economy with caution, according to Alice Kassens, dean of Roanoke College’s School of Business, Economics, and Analytics.
“While the economy shows strong headline growth, households are tightening overall budgets, reallocating dollars toward gifts and away from non-essential purchases and experiences,” Kassens said in a release about the poll. “Elevated prices and a softer labor market are shaping these decisions, alongside tariff-driven cost pressures in apparel and electronics.”
The Institute for Policy and Opinion Research (IPOR) at Roanoke College interviewed 912 Virginians from Nov. 9 to Nov. 14 about their holiday spending plans for the poll.
Not all shoppers in Virginia are pulling back.
Compared with last year, greater shares of Virginia shoppers plan to spend $1,000 or more or less than $100, suggesting that lower-income shoppers are pulling back while higher-income shoppers are splurging. That’s a trend that’s also playing out nationally.
“Those at the bottom are living with the cumulative impacts of price inflation,” Peter Atwater, an economics professor at William & Mary told ABC News. “At the same time, those at the top are benefiting from the cumulative impact of asset inflation.”
That trend may help explain why retailers like Wells saw similar sales numbers this holiday shopping season compared with a year ago. But the influx of cash was largely for heavily discounted items.
Wells worries that consumer caution will continue alongside Trump’s burdensome tariffs
“If people are only buying on sale, where does that leave myself, my business and others like mine,” she wondered. “For the rest of December, for incoming next year, we can’t be on Black Friday discount 365 days of the year.”
