How is COVID-19 impacting holiday shopping?

By Tyler Lindsay

With the holiday season drawing ever so near, new events arise to cause problems with shopping this holiday season.

Since the pandemic is still going on and the holiday season fast approaching, stores are taking new approaches for people to shop this holiday season.

Stores are taking extra precautions by setting up store limits as to how many people can be in the store at once, but most are pushing for people to shop online and stay safe.

With this, they also intend to start the deals a lot sooner than waiting till Black Friday. Mainstream stores have started in moving the start time of Black Friday up to 4pm on Thanksgiving. 

“COVID hasn’t really impacted my shopping since I’ve been shopping online from home since it’s safer then going into the store and plus it’s faster to shop then waiting in long lines for hours,” said student Zach Waldorf. 

“I usually go to the mall, but since COVID hit, it’s forcing me to shop more locally then going to big malls,” said Joe Van. “I’m also going to shop online for a lot of things this holiday season.”

People are also speculating this is where society will see the down fall of in-store shopping since people will now have the chance to buy their stuff with curbside pickup.

Still, there are some problems that can arise from everyone doing online shopping. This can cause websites to go down and also cause some stores to use a lottery system on items that are limited in the store. 

With this year being unpredictable due to the pandemic, it’s hard to tell where this will lead the future of in-mall shopping and online shopping.

This may lead to the demise of in-store shopping and the rise of internet shopping. Only time will tell where this will go.