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Writer's pictureCole Armstrong

How stress and anxiety affect your customers at Christmas


Guest article | Cole Armstrong, founder of NeuroSpot, brings a unique perspective to retail strategy through the lens of behavioural science. With years of experience helping leading New Zealand businesses, Cole is an expert in understanding customer behaviour and transforming it into impactful strategies.


In this piece, Cole dives into how stress and anxiety impact customer decision-making during the holiday season, offering actionable insights for retailers navigating this high-pressure time of year.


 

It’s Christmas time again.


The end of the year in New Zealand is a season of celebration. Summer is just beginning, school is wrapping up, the New Year is around the corner, and of course, Christmas is the headliner. It’s a time of nostalgia, family rituals, and optimism for what’s ahead.


But while the season brings plenty of joy, it also carries a heavy emotional load for many people.


For retailers there are significant challenges during the Christmas season, compounded by the economic pressures of 2024. While Retail NZ reports 57% of retailers to be confident of hitting Q4 sales targets, this is off the back of 70% failing to hit previous sales targets.


But what about how stress affects your customers – and importantly how it affects the way they shop, and their purchase decisions? For retailers, understanding how stress and anxiety impact your customers during this high-pressure season can mean the difference between winning them over or losing their trust.


So, what does this season do to your shoppers’ mindset, and how can you help?


Coming Together, and Trying Not to Fall Apart


Christmas is an emotive part of the year. For many, it’s tied to feelings of togetherness, warmth, and nostalgia. Right you might be thinking of childhood Christmases or thinking about how to recreate the experience this coming year.



While there’s a lot of positive emotions that swirl around Christmas (as illustrated by this very nostalgic and idealised version from Bed Bath N’ Table), there is a downside that retailers need to be aware of.


Of course in New Zealand it also coincides with summer and the end of the school year—milestones that add unique local significance. Beach cricket, holidays, BBQs with friends – wherever your interests lie, chances are that you’re trying to squeeze the most out of your limited summer hours.


So far so good.


But alongside the good, Christmas also brings a lot of additional stress. There’s more than just buying gifts for family and friends. There’s juggling of time, of energy, and endless lists of to-dos: planning of celebrations, attending events for work and social life, meeting work deadlines, and managing social expectations that expand as the weather gets warmer.


For customers, this season can feel overwhelming. Demands on their time and attention pile up, and shopping environments (whether physical or online) can become a sensory assault; people have a limited ability to process and respond to these competing demands.


This stress can influence customers in a variety of ways, including their ability to shop confidently.

 

So Much to Do, So Much to Buy … So Many Decisions!


All these demands on our time, our energy, our senses and the many decisions needing to be made hit a limit – our finite bandwidth.

If I think about a recent trip I made to Westfield Albany for Christmas shopping, the mental baggage that I carried into the journey and the number of advertising messages I was assailed with was greater than at any other time of the year. But my ability to process this information hadn’t improved; a recipe for cognitive overload.


Cognitive overload, or overwhelming someone’s mental bandwidth, can lead to several significant challenges for customers. When overwhelmed by too many decisions, their ability to evaluate different options diminishes, resulting in decision fatigue. As a result, shoppers might rely more heavily on simple mental shortcuts (or heuristics) – for example familiar brands, or safer items.


Many customers also experience analysis paralysis, where they delay or abandon purchases altogether because the mental effort required to decide becomes too great. In this situation, our instinct is to put off a decision till later.


Additionally, cognitive strain exacerbates stress and anxiety, making the shopping process less enjoyable and more draining. Ultimately, customers may leave the experience feeling dissatisfied, regretful, or frustrated, impacting their trust in and loyalty to the retailer – and this has both immediate impacts and long-term issues for attracting customers throughout the rest of the year.


For instance, I recently shopped for a right-handed softball glove for my son. He’s left-handed when throwing, so it had to fit his right hand—a small but significant detail. I found a reasonably priced glove in his size but hesitated: What if it’s the wrong fit? Can I return it easily? Overwhelmed by uncertainty, I left the site to “think about it”.


While I did return and buy it, it was more out of a sense of ‘need’ than ‘want’. I’m feeling less satisfied with my purchase, and this will influence how I view this unique experience, and my willingness to engage with the retailer in the future.


Cognitive overload at work. Hopefully my son enjoys the mitt!

 

What Can You Do to Help Customers in This Mindset?


The secret lies in simplifying decisions without oversimplifying your messaging. Your role as a retailer is to guide your customers through this situation of mental overload and help simplify their decision-making. Here are some suggestions:


  • Help guide customers to the popular or ‘right’ choice to buy. Customers overwhelmed by choices often want reassurance that they’re making the “right” decision. Show them your best-sellers, customer favourites, or items marked as trending. As individuals we might be uncertain about what to buy, but we’re likely to assume that following what others are buying may be the right bet


  • Create curated options. Offer gift guides, bundles, or curated collections for specific groups (e.g., “Gifts for Dad” or “Top Picks for Kids”). This reduces the mental load of sorting through hundreds of options. A good example is Farro’s gift hampers – with names such as “Picnic Hamper”, “Christmas Hamper” and “Entertainers Box” I don’t need to think about what’s inside, I’m already guided by the use and occasion.


  • Communicate at the right time. Deliver messaging when and where it matters most. For example, emphasize key information like “Free Returns” or “Gift Wrapping Available” directly on product pages or in the checkout process – wherever is relevant to the purchase journey. Even if customers ‘know’ that there is a returns policy (much like my example of buying a softball glove), other information might crowd out this knowledge – which is your job to solve for.



As retailers one of the key strategies to employ with stressed customers who might be mentally overloaded with information and decisions is to simplify the decision process. This example from Farro clearly communicates what situation each hamper box is appropriate for.

In Summary

Christmas may be a time of joy and togetherness, but for your customers, it’s also a season of high demands and stress. By understanding how anxiety impacts decision-making, you can create shopping experiences that help, not hinder, your customers.


Guide them, simplify their decision journey, and provide the reassurances they need. Because when your customers feel confident and supported, they’re far more likely to choose your store, not just at Christmas, but throughout the coming year.

 


 

Cole Armstrong is the founder and Managing Director of NeuroSpot, a behavioural strategy agency based in Auckland, New Zealand.


At NeuroSpot, Cole is working with a range of New Zealand’s leading organisations, covering fields such as retail, supermarkets, financial services, utilities and government amongst others, to apply a behavioural science lens to customer and user experience across a range of channels. His perspective is that behavioural science allows organisations to more effectively identify why people do what they do, and then set in motion a series of evidenced based strategies to deliver on organisational outcomes

 

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