Author: Linda Rosencrance
Spotfire Blogging Team
If you have a list and you’re still checking it twice – take heart, you’re not alone and there is an online services and tools that can help.
Did you know that 41% of shoppers plan to shop for holiday gifts between December 21 and 24? A number of consumers (43%) say they think they can get the best deals in the days leading up to Christmas and Hanukkah. And data from the survey indicates that 26% of last-minute shoppers admit to procrastinating, 22% believe it’s fun to shop at the last minute, and 10% are waiting for a year-end work bonus to begin shopping.
PriceGrabber (@PriceGrabber) conducted the survey from November 17 to November 30, 2011, and analyzed responses from 13,472 online shopping consumers in the US.
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Some last-minute shoppers (27%) indicate they plan to shop for last-minute gifts on daily deal sites such as Groupon (@Groupon) and LivingSocial (@LivingSocial) that emphasize bargains. The majority of shoppers on daily deal sites (58%) want to save money on gifts and they also like the discounts they can find on these sites. While 22% say they enjoy the great holiday deals on local services in their areas.
But even though these procrastinators, I mean last-minute shoppers, are looking for bargains, they’re not necessarily looking for small, inexpensive items. Fifty-three percent of these consumers are planning to buy both big- and small-ticket items. About one-third will buy only small-ticket items (under $100), while 6% will buy only big-ticket items (over $100).
And, while I totally understand people who wait until the last minute to purchase holiday gifts, I’m a little baffled by the 9% of shoppers – most of them men – who say they’ll wait until January to purchase holiday gifts. About two-thirds of the people waiting until January to shop plan to hit the after-Christmas sales and 27% of them plan to use holiday gift money to make their purchases. And about one-quarter of the people who do their holiday shopping after the holidays just like shopping in January.
Analysis from Compete (@Compete) conducted in December seems to back up the finding that women tend to shop earlier, while men are more willing to wait for bargains, at least when it comes to toy shopping. During 2010 and 2011, the numbers of male shoppers who bought holiday toys peaked around Black Friday, while more women did their holiday shopping earlier in the season.
