U.S. Consumers Expect to Spend Same or Less in 2011 Holiday Shopping Season Due to Economy

AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 14, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — A telephone survey conducted among 1,000 U.S. adults by Ipsos Public Affairs commissioned by Offers.com found that, given the state of the economy, 87 percent of respondents are planning to spend the same or less during the upcoming holiday season than they did in 2010.  The survey also found that almost half of consumers have been looking for deals throughout the year when shopping for those on their holiday gift list, while just 18 percent are planning to wait to shop on Black Friday or Cyber Monday. Only 48 percent plan to look for online coupons or coupon codes to stretch their holiday spending dollars before making a purchase.

Other highlights from the survey asked specifically about holiday shopping plans include:

• 52 percent of respondents spend more than an hour researching the best price for each holiday purchase, while 7 percent of consumers report to spend more than 6 hours researching each purchase they make for the holidays.
• 27 percent have been keeping their eye on online specials and daily deals, and 50 percent turn to newspaper or magazine coupons for savings.
• 69 percent of holiday shoppers would prefer to shop in a retail store rather than online if the merchandise and deals were the same, while 47 percent said they would shop online if the deals were better than in stores.

“With a majority of U.S. consumers being not likely to look for online coupons or coupon codes when they shop this holiday season, millions of consumers may let savings pass them by,” said Steve Schaffer, CEO of Offers.com.  “Online shopping can provide much better value, selection, and convenience than shopping at retail, and online coupons offer extra discounts that can’t be found elsewhere. The team at Offers.com makes it easy to save money and time while shopping at any time of the year, because we manually screen thousands of the best available offers and deals on a daily basis to ensure that they work.”

Offers.com provides consumers with easy-to-find online coupons, coupon codes, offers, and deals from thousands of online stores, and the Offers.com Holiday Savings Center provides consumers with unique and helpful content such as checklists, shopping tips, and survival guides.  Offers.com also organizes deals and provides guidance around specific holidays and trends such as Halloween, Black Friday 2011 Deals, and Cyber Monday 2011 Deals.

Additional demographic findings of the holiday spending poll include:

• While just 16 percent of adults with a household income of $75,000 or more indicated that they were not at all likely to seek out online coupons or coupon codes, almost three times as many (44 percent) of those with a household income of $25,000 gave the same answer.
• 73 percent of respondents aged 18-34 would prefer to shop in retail stores if the merchandise and deals were the same, but if the deals were better online, 50 percent would shop online instead.
• Similar to other age groups, 51 percent of respondents aged 18-34 have used newspaper or magazine coupons in the last 30 days.

The survey was conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs in September 2011.  For the survey, a nationally representative sample of 1,001 randomly-selected adults aged 18 and over residing in the U.S. was interviewed by telephone via Ipsos’ U.S. Telephone Express omnibus.  With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate within +/-3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire population of adults in the U.S. been polled.