Americans anticipate spending $655 on holiday gift purchases, and another $316 on parties, decorations and other seasonal items, according to a new survey. The gift figure represents a 7.8% increase over last year’s $608.15, according to the Shopping in America Holiday 2005 survey.
Consumers will primarily shop at retail outlets, such as mall stores, mall department stores and specialty stores. Only 8% said they would do most of their shopping through catalogs, and 6% indicated their main channel would be the Internet.
At 21%, clothing was the largest gift category mentioned, followed by toys (12%); electronics (12%); jewelry (11%); books and CDs (11%); mall gift cards/certificates (10%); fashion accessories (9%); home furnishings (5%); appliances (3%) and miscellaneous (7%).
The survey was conducted among 3,780 shoppers in 12 shopping centers around the United States. Because it was a customer-intercept study, as opposed to a true random sampling, direct marketing-focused consumers may have been underrepresented.
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