Consumer Attitudes & Behavior

It may only be the first week of November, but American shoppers are steadily crossing items off of their holiday shopping lists.   As of the end of September, one-third (33%) of consumers had already started their holiday shopping, up significantly from 25% in 2015. Further, they expect to spend an average of $908, an 8% increase from last year ($839 in 2015). Among affluent consumers, this threshold increases to an average of $1,513.  

Online growth — and along with it, online market share — continues to accelerate.   The trajectory is so strong that sales are on pace to hit $440 billion in 2017, a leap from $395 billion expected in 2016, according to “U.S. Online Sales Forecast: Omni-Channel Retailing Challenged by Its Success,” a report from FTI Consulting.   

The more help a consumer receives—digital and human—the more he or she is willing to spend while in the store.     Consumers spend twice as much in-store when they receive assistance from a store associate, according to a new study by InMoment, and 2.2 times more when they surf the brand’s web site while in the store. What’s more, a consumer’s average single-trip spend increases nearly four times when engaged by both in-store staff and the brand’s web site.  

An extended holiday season could translate into an 11% increase in online sales with mobile devices leading the charge.   Adobe’s “2016 Digital Insights Shopping Predictions” report predicts that 53 consecutive days (57 calendar days in total) will exceed $1 billion in online sales, compared to 31 consecutive days last year — a 71% year-over-year (YoY) increase.   

The upcoming United States presidential election is so tumultuous that it’s influencing shoppers to pull back holiday shopping plans.    With the election falling in the middle of holiday shopping, many U.S. consumers said they will have a more conservative holiday spending budget this year, according to the National Retail Federation’s annual consumer spending survey, a report that tapped 7,733 consumers about holiday shopping plans.   

Amazon is poised to become the biggest clothing retailer in the United States in 2017.   That’s according to a report by Cowen & Co., which sees the Internet giant’s clothing/accessories sales increasing some 30% next year to $28 billion, Geekwire.com reported, and to $62 billion in 2021.   Click here to read more.

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Are landlords on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue shooting themselves in the foot by demanding record new rents for the famed shopping address?    The availability rate on Fifth Avenue increased to 15.9% in the third quarter, up from about 10% from a year earlier, according to Cushman & Wakefield Inc., Bloomberg reported.