The deals attempt to persuade consumers to shop early as a way to spread out the delivery congestion following the Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. They're also experimenting with in-house delivery options and third parties like Shipt, Deliv and Instacart that primarily deliver groceries but could also handle general merchandise used for gifts. And in the future, consumers can expect to hear about Christmas in February and March as retailers look to use artificial intelligence and machine learning to determine what consumers want for the holidays by July, which could eliminate inventory issues slowing down delivery, Ladd said. "This is really an evolution; every year there is a change in technology, an improvement in the supply chain," he said.