Despite early shopping sales to reel in sales, inflation will likely impact how much consumers spend during Black Friday.

Local businesses are hoping to attract customers with shopping experiences and special deals.

At Hearth & Soul, the annual advent window features a special theme: The Nutcracker and the Land of the Sweets with giant lollipops, cupcake and colorful cookie decorations.

The window display changes every year and is designed to kick off the holiday season. It’s also a means to catch the eye of shoppers.

“The holiday window allows us to spread holiday joy every year with surprise and delight,” said Susie Busch-Transou, founder and owner at Hearth & Soul. “This year, in particular, that is very important because of things like inflation and just more stress among us.”

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Hearth & Soul, an upscale boutique that sells clothes, furniture and home goods, made a deliberate effort this year to find items at approachable price points, Busch-Transou said, knowing inflation was going to be an issue.

“We worked really hard to bring in new products that were approachable, so you had the options. You had the choices,” she said, adding the store is also offering discounts on everything with black in it for Black Friday.

In addition, many people are still recovering from the economic downturn created by the COVID-19 pandemic, said Samique March-Dallas, an associate finance professor at Florida A&M University.

Their ability to spend during this Black Friday will be tied to household debt.

"I think this is going to be a different Black Friday than we have seen in a while,” said March-Dallas, who's predicting consumers to be more conservative. "I think most people are going to be spending from a debt perspective. So it depends on where their debt load is."

Inflation rose 8.2% between September 2021 and September 2022, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. This decreases the consumer purchasing power.

Despite concerns over inflation, the Florida Retail Federation is forecasting holiday retail sales to grow from between 6% and 8% during November and December, with sales reaching between $942.6 billion and $960.4 billion, over 2021.

In a statement, the Florida Retail Federation said many shoppers (44%) are feeling the pressure of rising costs and limited availability, purchasing holiday gifts and other items early in order to avoid the possibility of products becoming more expensive. As a result, consumers are shopping early in an effort to hunt deals.

Garnet & Gold Owner Guy Moore said he sees an uptick in prices across the board, including bumper stickers, license plates and clothes.

“Everything goes up a little bit … We’re a small company so we have to really watch our margins. We have to bump it up a little bit to keep up with it,” he said regarding prices. “It’s not anything overwhelming where customers are going to go, ‘Holy crap.'”

Yet, he said it’s hard to say whether inflation will have a significant impact on whether customers patronize his retail store. A winning football season, he said, has more impact and Florida State is on a winning streak.

“It’s hard to tell whether there’s a dip unless there’s a terrible football season or a COVID epidemic. And that just about killed us for three years,” Moore said. “We are just coming out of a three-year horrific time. We had to borrow money to stay alive. We laid off half the staff. But, we’re back to normal now."

Contact TaMaryn Waters at tlwaters@tallahassee.com or follow @TaMarynWaters on Twitter. 

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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Rising inflation costs may reduce Black Friday spending