by Ada Zhang, Liu Yanan
NEW YORK, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- Holiday shopping in New York's Bryant Park, usually marked by festive crowds and impulse buys, has taken on a more cautious tone this year as higher prices reshape how Americans spend, amid rising tariffs and supply-chain costs.
At the park's open-air holiday market in Midtown Manhattan, which typically hosts more than 125 stalls and draws millions of visitors each holiday season, shoppers paused longer on price tags. Kendall Gregory, 30, who traveled from New Jersey to the park on Wednesday, said prices were shaping how she chose gifts.
"Everything is way too expensive. Unless they're a girlfriend or a wife or a mom, then it doesn't matter. But for everyone else, you get a budget," she said.
Gregory said tariffs were a key factor behind rising prices, and it's hard for small businesses to make a profit. "They're either giving up their sales or they're paying 20,000 dollars to be here for a month," she said.
A recent analysis conducted by Groundwork Collaborative, The Century Foundation and the American Federation of Teachers showed that prices for many of the most popular holiday gifts in the United States have jumped sharply this season, with prices soaring by an average of 26 percent from a year earlier, nearly nine times the broader inflation.
The groups attributed the higher prices in part to record-high U.S. tariffs on imported goods from major manufacturing hubs.
The Budget Lab at Yale assumes the Federal Reserve "looks through" the tariffs, allowing prices to rise so that the tax burden is passed on through higher prices rather than wages. The lab estimates that, even with exemptions, tariffs will increase costs by 1,700 dollars for each average American household.
"If you have tariffs and if you have rent increases, everything increases. It has to go up a certain amount because ... if I stay the same, I go out of business," Paul Prianti, owner of Christmas Cottage, a decades-old Christmas decor store in Manhattan, told Xinhua on Saturday.
Younger shoppers are also adjusting their habits. Brynn Bohuny, 18, from a generation that has largely come of age with online shopping, was walking the streets of New York on Wednesday in search of holiday gifts for her family.
Bohuny said a swimsuit that typically costs about 100 dollars ended up costing around 340 dollars after shipping, which she said was due to tariffs.
"I think it's definitely impacted in-person shopping versus just online. I feel like it's increased in-person shopping for me personally, because I don't want to pay for shipping and stuff," said Bohuny.
The United States ended duty exemption for international shipments worth 800 dollars or less at the end of August, leaving such packages subject to the tariff rate of their country of origin.
Persistent high prices are also reshaping how U.S. families approach holiday shopping.
A Gallup poll conducted in November found a sharp pullback in Americans' holiday spending plans. Estimated gift budgets fell by 229 dollars between October and November, dropping well below last year's levels and marking the largest midseason decline Gallup has ever recorded. ■