Holiday survey: Another lockdown wouldn’t affect holiday spend

Most U.S. consumers aren’t planning on cutting back on holiday spending, but they are prioritizing who they purchase for and adjusting budgets accordingly. 

That’s according to a new survey of global consumers from Rakuten Advertising, which found that Americans are most likely to increase spend when purchasing for their immediate family (33%) and decrease spend on friends (41%).  

The survey also revealed that compared to other regions, even if a lockdown re-occurs, most (63%) of U.S. shoppers would no decrease their planned holiday spend.

Other survey findings are below.

• Over 70% of consumers globally plan to either increase spending or spend the same year-over-year this holiday season, despite more than 40% of shoppers citing a decrease in household spend due to COVID-19.

• Compared to other regions, U.S. consumers are more likely to spend the same on holiday shopping as they did in 2019.
 
• American parents are more likely to increase their holiday spending on immediate family this year rather than friends; people without children are more likely to not make any changes to their overall spending compared to last year.
 
• Fifty-four percent of global consumers have said there will be no change to their spend for key shopping dates in 2021, such as Valentine’s Day, in the first half of the year.