The holiday shopping season is fast approaching, but a new consumer study by AlixPartners 
shows how this year will be markedly different for retailers and shoppers than years past. The pandemic has accelerated some trends in the retail space that were already emerging, which will be playing out this year like never before. According to the survey, nearly half of holiday shoppers planned to begin their shopping before Halloween this year, a 7 percent increase over last year. The survey also found that 45 percent of Americans plan to do most of their holiday shopping online this year, a 15 percent increase over last year. To talk about the shifting importance of the holiday shopping season, we caught up with David Bassuk, AlixPartners' Global Retail Co-Lead and Managing Partner.
Consulting: What's your overview of the current state of the retail consulting market?
Bassuk: It's changing dramatically. The retail space is in a major disruption, obviously that has not only been accelerated by covid, but some of this was happening pre-COVID of course, so it's been accelerated and amplified by COVID in that retailers are well aware that not only are the impacts going to be dramatic, not only is it going to be a long road to come out of this, but that the new normal is going to be very different. The consulting market, when there are disruptions, many players capitalize on that. The consulting market in this space is very active as retailers think through their move on the chessboard. That can be from strategy to operations to financial advisory and everything in between.
