A recent poll conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs on behalf of Offers.com reveals that nearly half of U.S. adults plan to cut back on their holiday-shopping spending this year compared to last year. The poll also found that many adults aren’t taking advantage of online coupons to help with their spending.
According to the poll, 45 percent of respondents said that given the current state of the economy, they plan on spending less than they did last year on holiday shopping. Meanwhile, 42 percent said they plan on spending the same as last year, 11 percent said they plan on spending more than last year and 3 percent said they don’t know or weren’t sure.
When planning for holiday-shopping season, 49 percent of consumers find deals throughout the year, while 27 percent monitor online specials and daily deals and 18 percent wait for Black Friday or Cyber Monday to begin their holiday shopping.
The poll also found that 45 percent spend less than an hour researching the best prices for each of their holiday purchases, while 38 percent said they spend 1-3 hours. Another 7 percent said they spend 3-6 hours doing this research, while 7 percent said they spend more than six hours researching.
In response to the question “In the last 30 days, what types of savings opportunities have you used?” 50 percent of respondents answered newspaper or magazine coupons, while 47 percent said loyalty cards or in-store promotions. Meanwhile, 28 percent said printable coupons, 27 percent said daily deals and 25 percent said online coupon codes. Fifteen percent said they used none of these.
According to the poll, 48 percent of respondents said they are likely to search for online coupons or coupon codes before making a holiday purchase, while 51 percent said they are unlikely to do so.
If the merchandise and deals were the same, 69 percent of respondents said they would prefer to shop in retail stores, while 26 percent would prefer to shop online. If they could find better deals online this holiday season, 47 percent said they’d prefer to shop online, while 46 percent would still go to retail stores.
Of consumers who said they shop online, 16 percent said they always look for a coupon or coupon code to make their shopping dollar go farther, while 24 percent said they do so most of the time, 37 percent said they do so once in a while and 23 percent said they never do this.
According to the National Retail Federation, holiday retail sales for 2011 are expected to total $465.6 billion, up 2.8 percent from last year.
Sources:
http://dl.us.offerscdn.net/fall-shopping-poll.pdf
http://nrf.com/modules.php?name=News&op=viewlive&sp_id=1206
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