• by Ray Schultz , October 19, 2022

Consumers are ready to do some early holiday shopping, judging by a new study from Cision. 

Online conversations about early shopping increased by 62%, and have hit a level not seen since 2020, the report says. 

Positive mentions increased by 12%, negative ones by 15%. 

The sheer popularity of early shopping comprised most of the positive commentary, Cision reports. Negative sentiment focused on economic issues with keywords like inflation, e-commerce, and supply chain.

Entertainment has returned to the top spot among verticals, haven fallen to third place in 2021 because of fears over shipping delays. 

Next is Home & Gardens, which was No. 1 in 2021. Food & Grocery is third, although it has seen some slippage. It was followed by clothing and sports. 

Many retailers are offering increased customer perks like price match guarantees, extended return windows and exclusive partnerships to entice early shopping, states Chelsea Mirkin, Head of Global Analysis at Cision.

However, many have trimmed seasonal hiring plans retaining 2021 seasonal staff as permanent employees, Mirkin adds.  

Cision’s Brandwatch gathers data from its web crawlers, search APIs, third-party data streams and direct relationships with specific sites.