Consumer Behavior

Consumers adjusting shopping but spend should be on par with 2021

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November 23, 2022

While finances and inflation are top concerns for holiday shoppers, prompting 93% to adjust gift shopping, overall spend on gifts is expected to remain on par with last year, according to research from Numerator, a data and tech market research provider.

A hefty number, 82%, of consumers plan to buy gifts between Black Friday and Cyber Monday and nearly 59% are worried about the ability to afford gifts this year.

The data comes from Numerator's 2022 Holiday Gift Shopping Preview report identifying consumer intentions during the biggest retail sales season of the year.

Additional findings include:

• 93% of consumers will adjust gift shopping to account for higher prices. The top adjustments will be seeking out additional promotions and sales (49% of shoppers), purchasing less expensive gifts (43%), purchasing fewer gifts (38%) and purchasing gifts for fewer people (22%).
• Two-thirds of shoppers (64%) have a set budget for holiday gifts. About half of shoppers (51%) expect to spend over $500 on gifts, and 17% will spend over $1,000.
• Among the 26% of shoppers who expect to spend more on gifts this year, the top reason is that they expect gifts will be more expensive (59%), followed by a need to buy more gifts (23%) or a desire to indulge more this year (15%).
• Among the 28% of shoppers who expect to spend less on gifts this year, the top reason is less financial flexibility due to inflation (60%), followed by a need to save money for essentials (44%) and having less discretionary spending money this year (40%).
• The top sale types gift shoppers want to see are flat product discounts (60%), buy-one-get-one (BOGO) deals (40%), rewards points (44%) or rebates (37%).
• Gift cards continue to hold the top spot on the holiday gift list — 60% of shoppers expect to purchase some sort of gift card this holiday season. The most popular gift card choices are Amazon (35%), Target (20%), restaurants (19%), Walmart (18%) and credit card style gift cards (18%).
• Experiential gifts like event tickets or travel are the only category shoppers expect to buy more of this holiday season— 17% of gift buyers expect to purchase these types of gifts, up from 14% last year.