Big holiday season approaching this year

Every year holiday shopping seems to start earlier and earlier, especially this year because Thanksgiving and Christmas are less than four weeks apart. That's six days fewer than last year, so 7 On Your Side takes a look at how to find the best deals.

There's another reason this shopping season is unique -- Hanukkah falls on Thanksgiving Day for a holiday mash-up that some experts say has never happened before.

"We just started the holiday shopping like right as the summer was ending," said

According to Retailmenot, almost 40 percent of consumers have reported that they've already started to shop for holiday gifts. That's a 10 percent jump from last year.

"I think that's because of the recession, we got into the habit of shopping earlier because it's a little more of a financially conservative way to shop, it's not as impactful on your monthly budget," said Trae Badge, an editor at Retailmenot.

Badge says back to school was not as big as retailers hoped for. She told us, "Retailers have a lot of merchandise that they're trying to push through in anticipation of merchandise coming from overseas for instance for holiday, so there are a lot of strong apparel deals."

If you have teens and tweens on your list this is a great time to shop for them.

"I wait for my kids to find it online, put it in a shopping cart and save it for a while and then wait for the online promotions to come out," said Carol Palmer of San Francisco.

And if you are shopping online at big box stores, you'll start to see purchases arrive at your door more quickly than in past years.

"You'll be noticing a lot of big box retailers like Walmart and Target for instance not shipping only from their warehouses, but also from their stores and so what that's doing is allowing them to lower shipping prices for the consumer and it also decreases the shipping time," said Badge.

Experts also anticipate mobile shopping deals will be big this season.

"There will be a lot businesses catering to the consumer in that way, offering advance deals and private sells and offers and things like that," said Badge.

Downloading the apps from the retailers you like the most will ensure you get the best deals possible this season.

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holiday, shopping, thanksgiving, christmas, hanukkah, 7 on your side, michael finney

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