The holiday rush is coming with fewer hands. Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which has tracked seasonal retail hiring for decades, expects US retailers to add 450,000 jobs in the fourth quarter of 2026. Last year they added 461,500, the smallest seasonal gain since 2008. In 2024 the figure was 543,100.
Smaller stores face the same choice on a smaller scale. Here are the questions owners ask when they plan a lean season, one at a time.
Why are retailers hiring fewer people?
Challenger points to three pressures: prices that are still high, tariffs still working through supply chains, and a move toward automation and flexible staffing. Retailers are "leaning on automation, existing associates, and on-demand pools" before they hire anyone new.
The same report says shoppers are stretched but still showing up. The orders will come. The open question is who handles them.
Does a smaller team mean slower answers?
Only if the work is split the same way as last year. Packing, shipping and returns grow with orders, and they are easy to measure. Shopper questions grow too, but they arrive at odd hours and nobody counts them until the inbox is full.
A question left until the next morning is often a sale that went to the store that answered first. Before you cut hours, count last December's questions by day and hour, across email, chat and phone. That count shows where a smaller team will hurt.
Who on the team should answer shoppers?
The people who already know the products. A new seasonal hire can pack a box on day one, but it takes weeks before they can say whether a jacket runs small. Your existing staff can say it today.
That argues for a different split. Move your most experienced people onto the questions, and give packing, labelling and restocking to temporary or on-demand help. How to coach your support team to sell with confidence covers how to prepare them.
Which questions still need a person?
Some can be settled by the page: sizes, materials, delivery cut-off dates. Put those in writing now, while there is time, so fewer of them reach the team.
The rest need someone who has handled the product. Whether a gift will suit the person receiving it, whether two products work together, whether a colour matches what the shopper already owns. A short conversation settles these, and a video call settles them faster, because the advisor can show the product instead of describing it.
What can you set up before November?
Start with the hours. Pick the times someone will answer, publish them, and staff them with the people who know the range. When should your store be available for live help? shows how to choose them from your own traffic.
Then rewrite the five product pages that drew the most questions last year, and decide now who covers the evenings in the two weeks before Christmas, when shoppers are buying for other people and have the most to ask. A smaller team can handle the season if its best people spend it on live shopping conversations rather than on boxes.
