Millennial Money: Set your strategy for Memorial Day sales

Last Memorial Day, Americans were dizzy from the pandemic, recession and widespread shutdowns.

Many had shopping for hand sanitizer and toilet paper on the brain.

But this May, life seems to be blooming again ahead of the unofficial start of summer.

And in more typical Memorial Day fashion, the weekend leading up to May 31 will be filled with sales on appliances, apparel and travel — plus a few new categories, too. Here’s where to find the deals and how to save.

SOME OLD, SOME NEW NORMAL

Retailers have a few go-to Memorial Day product categories. The day is traditionally marked with substantial discounts on household items like laundry appliances, kitchen appliances and mattresses.

That’ll be true again this year, and some promotions have already started. But in 2021 in particular, some of the sales will also be targeted to the activities Americans care about during the ongoing pandemic and gradual reopening. Think barbecues in the backyard, socially distanced camping trips and home improvement projects.

“We’ll be shopping for apparel because we’ll be seeing more people this summer than we did last summer,” says Barbara Stewart, professor and coordinator of retailing and consumer science at the University of Houston.

“I think consumers are also ready to do some traveling because we’ve been at home for more than a year,” she says.

Add road trip supplies, car maintenance , camping gear, hotel rooms and domestic airfare to the list of Memorial Day markdowns.

After all, businesses can access word searches to see what consumers are searching for online. Retailers often align sales to match trending categories and in turn encourage spending, says Priya Raghubir , Dean Abraham L. Gitlow professor of business at New York...