The impact of the pandemic has many shoppers revising their gift-giving budgets, but Americans are still looking for ways to make the holidays special, according to a survey of more than 1,000 U.S. adults by SMARTeam, Advantage Sales’ consumer goods insights team.
While 56% of survey respondents say they plan to spend the same amount on gifts this year as they did last year, a full one-third plan to spend less. Nearly six in 10 of those who say their finances have been hit by COVID-19 plan to spend less.
Half of those who celebrate one of the major winter holidays say the pandemic will impact the types of gifts they purchase — one in 10 say they plan on buying healthier or safer gifts.
Much of the gift-giving spending will move online, as more than half of those surveyed (55%) say they’ll visit fewer brick-and-mortar stores for gifts this holiday season compared to last year. Nearly as many (52%) plan to shop at more online stores for gifts.
Despite the financial constraints and move toward more online shopping, fewer gift-givers (28%, down 18 points) plan to participate in Black Friday and Cyber Monday (39%, down 9 points) sales.
