It is November and every retail brand in America is staring at the same spreadsheet: tariff-inflated costs, inflation-fatigued consumers, and a holiday season that needs to deliver the annual number or the whole year is a miss. The pressure is real and it is making people do dumb things.
It is November and every retail brand in America is staring at the same spreadsheet: tariff-inflated costs, inflation-fatigued consumers, and a holiday season that needs to deliver the annual number or the whole year is a miss.
I have been in three strategy sessions this month where someone suggested "maybe we just discount harder." And every time, I have the same reaction: discounting is not a strategy. It is a surrender. It says "we could not find a reason for you to pay what this is worth, so here is less."
The brands that will win this holiday season are not the ones discounting deepest. They are the ones who have spent all year building the justification for full price. Here is what I am seeing from the smart ones:
They are selling meaning, not product. The gift economy runs on story. "I got you this because it reminded me of that time we..." is a more powerful purchase driver than "this was 40% off." Brands that arm their customers with gifting narratives outperform brands that compete on price.
They are creating scarcity through curation, not limitation. Limited drops are tired. Curated gift guides that feel like a smart friend picked everything? Never tired. The editorial voice becomes the value-add. The brand's taste becomes the product.
They are investing in experience over transaction. Pop-ups. In-store events. Personalization that goes beyond a monogram. Wrapping services. Handwritten notes. Things that turn a purchase into a memory. Things Amazon cannot do.
The economic pressure is real but it creates a sorting mechanism. The brands with genuine equity can charge for it. The brands that were always secretly commodity players with good marketing are getting exposed. And that exposure is uncomfortable but clarifying.
Here is my uncomfortable truth for the season: if your brand cannot command full price during the most emotionally charged buying period of the year, you do not have a brand problem for the holidays. You have a brand problem for the year. The holidays just make it visible.
Do not discount your way to a number. It works once. Then it resets expectations. Then you are a discount brand forever. Instead, find the story that makes the price feel like a privilege rather than a penalty. That story should have been built all year. If it was not, learn the lesson and start building it in January.