As holidays near, shoppers still procrastinating

updated 9:03 p.m. ET Dec. 18, 2007

NEW YORK - Never mind all the pressure this season from the nation's stores to do holiday shopping early with such tactics as marathon shopping hours and other come-ons. Meghan Donovan is doing it her way.

The San Francisco resident starts her research in early November, thumbing through catalogs, checking out stores and searching online. Then she waits, and doesn't pounce on anything unless the item is down at least 30 percent.

"I definitely do a lot of research and then narrow it down ... I would have spent more money if I shopped earlier," said Donovan, who started her holiday buying late Sunday night, when the crowds were thinner. She doesn't plan to finish until this Sunday.

With Christmas less than a week away, merchants are finding themselves in the same situation as in recent years: waiting for those last-minute shoppers. But based on anecdotal evidence, the ritual of shopping later is becoming more prominent as consumers — under increasing time pressure and armed with the Internet, gift cards and other buying options — want to take more control of the shopping experience.

Exacerbating the problem this year is that Christmas falls on a Tuesday, giving consumers a full weekend to finish.

"What we see in broad terms is that people are less interested in being forced to do something by marketers and retailers and a lot more are interested in managing the shopping and consuming experience themselves," said J. Walker Smith, president of market research company Yankelovich Inc. "They want to be in charge. It's not that people don't want to shop. They just want to shop on their own terms."

Video   The gift that keeps on taking Dec. 17: Gift cards, a last-minute measure for many shoppers, are increasingly popular, but with $8 billion left in unspent store credits from last year, it's the retailers who are grateful. NBC's Kevin Tibbles reports. Nightly News

Such changing consumer habits could transform how the nation's stores operate, for example, expanding shopping hours for the rest of the year, says Michael P. Niemira, chief economist at International Council of Shopping Centers.

Nevertheless, Marshal Cohen, chief analyst at NPD Group Inc., said stores are partly at fault for such delayed holiday buying because, with the exception of some popular items such as Australian sheepskin UGG boots or Nintendo's Wii, there's very little reason for shoppers to run out to stores to buy early. Instead, consumers are buying into general categories such as flat-panel TVs or GPS systems, with no specific brand in mind, so they can wait for the best deal.

"There's no passion," for holiday shopping, Cohen said.

The procrastination phenomenon is increasingly frustrating retailers whose efforts to draw customers aren't working they way they used to.

Big sales in early November — along with the sales bonanza on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving — took a lot of thunder out of December, according to Candace Corlett, principal at WSL Strategic Retail. Stores including Toys "R" Us Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. tried to start the season early with expanded hours and early morning specials similar to those offered on Black Friday, the traditional kickoff of holiday shopping.

MORE FROM HOLIDAY RETAIL

Holiday retail Section Front

Post-holiday sales aren’t saving the season How to recover from holiday ‘debt hangover’ Shoppers rush to stores before Christmas Shoppers ‘too little, too late’ to save season Final hours will be long ones for some stores Stores brace for last-minute gift card surge Maine: Why let unused gift cards go to waste? Holiday shoppers taking their sweet time U.S. may face foreign shopper hangover Consumers still spending on gadgets Holiday retail Section Front   Add Holiday retail headlines to your news reader: