Brand Keys: Holiday spend down 5% in 2013
New York – The average consumer will spend $825 on holiday purchases in 2013, a 5% drop from last year. According to the new Brand Keys annual holiday survey, only 19% of shoppers surveyed indicated that they started shopping for the holidays in October, 5% fewer than 2012.
Forty-five percent of perspective shoppers indicated they would begin shopping in November, with most consumers (35%) indicating they intended to wait for the traditional Thanksgiving Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. Another 35% of shoppers indicated they will wait until December to shop.
Virtually all consumers interviewed indicated they’d buy some holiday gift online (98%). Other popular destinations include discount department stores (94%, up 4% from 2012), traditional department stores (76%, up 6% from 2012) and specialty and apparel stores (45%, up 5% from 2012). The only traditional outlet that dipped significantly was catalogues (50%), down 18% from last year. Ninety-five percent of consumers plan to buy gift cards.
In addition, 65% of the 15,200 U.S, consumers interviewed indicated that they used, or planned to use, their mobile devices to research shopping options for the upcoming holiday season.
“There’s a different ‘feel’ to the holiday marketplace this year,” said Robert Passikoff, president of Brand Keys. “It’s calmer. Retailers didn’t start advertising for the holidays right after back-to-school like last year, and consumers don’t feel the pressure they once did. We’re not seeing the ‘Buy Now!’ or ‘Lay-It-Away’ advertising we saw in recent years.”