In an early read on the 2024 holiday retail season, Skai, an omnichannel advertising platform, reported 15% of U.S. consumers surveyed said they already started shopping for the season, and 58% said they would begin holiday shopping by November 1.
Still, that doesn’t mean most shoppers necessarily intend to rush, reported Skai, which surveyed 1,000 prospective shoppers. Some 59% of those surveyed reported they might be willing to wait until January to do at least some of their holiday-related shopping if they thought they would get better deals.
Early shopping doesn’t mean consumers want retailers to jump into the holiday season with summer still in the air: 60% of survey respondents said it’s too early to run holiday promotions before October. However, some consumers are more anxious for holiday shopping to start, with 20% saying it’s never too early for holiday promotions.
Most consumers’ plans for the holidays call for “mindful spending,” as Skai characterized it, with 80% of shoppers budgeting carefully because of concerns related to the economy. At the same time, 20% said inflation won’t prompt changes in their holiday splending.
As for those budgets, 51% of respondents said they would spend up to $500 and 49% more. Just over two thirds of consumers plan on shopping home and garden products for the holidays this year. The top target category for holiday shopping was fashion/apparel, at 90.7%, followed by toys and games at 84.6%, hobbies and leisure at 83.8%, beauty and personal care at 81.8%, books and media, at 78.5%, health and wellness at 74.7%, computers and electronics at 73.5%, and jewelry at 72.7%. Two thirds of respondents said they would lay out the same or more money on holiday shopping year over year and the same proportion said they would spend up to half their budgets between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday. Some 68% of respondents intend to shop Amazon’s October Prime Day, with 54% saying Prime Day would reduce their “Cyber 5” budgets. Still, when they identify dates important or very important in holiday shopping, 68% said Thanksgiving, 70% said Black Friday, 62% said the Saturday and Sunday following Thanksgiving, and 70% said Cyber Monday.
Retailer websites are the foremost place consumers research their holiday purchasing, Skai noted, followed by search engines, browsing in physical stores, social media and TV and streaming. In all, 64% prefer researching online, Skai added, and 54% still browse physical stores when considering purchasing decisions.
As to shopping technology, 13% of respondents said they use AI tools to help in shopping, up from 5% in 2023.
