"Katie Thomas notices everything in her local mall: How clothes in the window display of an athleisure store switched from blues to browns overnight. How Nordstrom aisles are spaced so they seem quiet, but spawn swarms of people carrying the branded bags. How many teenagers a gaggle of boys! are here on a school night, actually shopping, loaded with bags. As a teen, Thomas had worked and hung out at Ross Park Mall. Now it's where she does reconnaissance as a retail expert."
"she has put her finger on a new driving force of the American shopper. "What it actually all goes back to is control," she says. "They're trying to figure out what they can control in a world where they feel a sheer loss of control." Lurched from a worldwide pandemic into surging inflation, then tariffs, a historic government shutdown and an unstable world order, people are finding agency in their own spending."
Shoppers are recalibrating buying behavior to regain control amid pandemic aftershocks, surging inflation, tariffs, a government shutdown, and geopolitical instability. Consumers are conserving not only money but time and energy, prioritizing purchases that deliver value, certainty, and emotional payoff. Mall observation and data analysis reveal shifts in store assortments, layouts, and youth shopping patterns, signaling retailers to adapt marketing and product mixes for holiday season and into 2026. The term "frugal consumer" describes those who strategically allocate resources across spending categories, balancing practical needs with occasional indulgences and experiential purchases.
Read at www.npr.org
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