Millennial Money: How to holiday shop at the last minute

Supply chain snags. Sold-out merchandise. Empty shelves. Hefty shipping fees. Inflation. There are plenty of complications working against you this holiday shopping season.

And despite warnings to shop early because of pandemic-related delays, some of us didn’t prioritize holiday shopping in October and November.

But all hope isn’t lost. Here’s what to do if you still have gifts left to purchase this month.

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Keep checking back with retailers — both online and in stores — over the next few weeks, and you could be pleasantly surprised.

“Typically retailers get multiple deliveries in throughout a holiday season, so even if something is sold out earlier in the season, there’s always a chance that it could come back in stock in December,” says Katherine Cullen , senior director of industry and consumer insights for the National Retail Federation.

And remember all of those deliveries that were supposed to arrive weeks ago? Well, they may finally make their way onto U.S. soil — and onto store shelves in the weeks ahead.

“With some of these delays that are impacting retailers at ports, we need to consider those holiday shipments they’ve scheduled for November. Maybe they’ll be coming in December,” Cullen says.

Besides physically visiting stores or manually checking websites for product availability, you can also let technology do the work for you. On many retail sites, you can enter your email address and sign up to be notified when a…