Half of This Season's Shoppers Expect to Borrow. One in Four Will Still Be Paying in 2027. That's Who Calls in January.
· CX Pulse
ICSC's survey says 49% of holiday shoppers expect to borrow and 23% will still be paying in 2027. January's service queue gets built in December.
Half of This Season's Shoppers Expect to Borrow. One in Four Will Still Be Paying in 2027. That's Who Calls in January.
ICSC released its 2026 Holiday Intentions Survey on October 6. The headline is the forecast: retail sales up 4.3% to 4.9%, total spend past $1.7 trillion, 88% of U.S. adults buying gifts, 78% spending the same or more than last year. The release was written to say demand is holding, and it does.
The fourth paragraph says how. "Nearly half (49%) expect to borrow money to cover purchases they cannot immediately pay for in full." 47% expect holiday spending to "delay or reduce debt repayment, savings, or retirement contributions." And "nearly one in four (23%) expect to still be paying for their 2026 holiday purchases in 2027."
Two paragraphs later: 58% expect to try a new brand this season, and 52% plan to shop with a retailer they haven't used before. 68% say discounts, promotions and exclusive offers will get them to make additional store trips.
Read the three numbers as one customer
Put them together and the customer at the register in December looks like this. Half of them are new to the store. Most of them came because of a discount. Half of them are paying with money they don't have yet, on a card, an installment plan or a loan. One in four will see that purchase on a statement after New Year's, and some of them will see it every month until spring.
ICSC surveyed 1,003 people over three days in late September, so the numbers describe intentions rather than receipts, and intentions are enough for the point. A retailer's first contact with a new customer this season is a transaction that stays open on the customer's side long after it closes on the store's.
What January looks like from the service desk
The sale posts once. The customer's side of it runs for months, and every contact in that window happens with someone who hasn't finished paying for the last thing you sold them.
Returns come back against a financed basket. When the purchase sat on a card, the refund lands roughly where the customer expects it. When it sat on an installment plan, the refund travels back through whoever financed it before the customer's plan changes, and the store usually learns how long that takes from the customer. The store sees a refund it issued. The customer sees a plan that still shows a balance.
Price questions arrive from a group that was comparison shopping before it bought. 27% told ICSC they would do more research or comparison shopping because of prices, and 25% expected to switch to a cheaper product or brand. The customer who finds the item cheaper in January is the same one still paying December's price, and the ask is for the difference.
Then there's the contact that never reaches you. A customer who can't get an answer from the store about a refund has a dispute button at the card or the lender. The lender brings it to you weeks later, with the customer's version attached.
For a CX organization at scale
The December payment mix is a January forecast, and most planning cycles never open it. Pull the split of December orders by payment method, card against installment plan against store credit, and put it next to last January's contact reasons. If financed orders carry more contacts per order, that's the Q1 staffing model, and it's already sitting in the order table.
Refund time is a customer-facing number and it differs by payment method. Report it by method rather than as one average. The average hides the plan refunds, which are the ones that generate the second call.
Write the price-adjustment answer before the first ask. Whether the policy is 14 days, 30 days or never, the agent needs one sentence and the authority to use it. A January queue full of "let me check with someone" is a December decision nobody made.
Loyalty enrollment peaks in December because half the people in the store are new. The first offer those accounts receive will land in January, next to a statement for the purchase that enrolled them. The program can't see how the customer paid. The send calendar should at least know the season's borrowing rate.
For a smaller business
The version for a shop with one register is shorter. Half the people who walk in this season have never been in before, and ICSC says a discount is what brings most of the extra trips. Whether they come back in March gets decided when the gift comes back in January.
Three things to write down before the season starts. The return terms for a gift bought by somebody else. The answer when a customer says the item is cheaper now. And if the checkout offers an installment plan, what the refund path looks like and how long it takes, found out from the provider now rather than from a customer in February.
ICSC's own sentence for the season is that consumers "are willing to make sacrifices for the things that matter to them." The sacrifice gets paid in installments. A sale closes once at the register. For one in four customers, the purchase is still open in 2027, and every contact until then is with someone still paying for it.