Economic downturn likely to affect Christmas shopping – Walmart

01 Oct '08

6 min read

Key findings include:
Timing
• Women begin making their Christmas lists farther in advance of Christmas than men.
• Women are significantly more likely than men to have already started making their Christmas shopping lists (29 percent vs. 17 percent).
• Men are much more likely than women to wait until the last minute to make their shopping lists (30 percent of males wait until December vs. 13 percent of women).
• Younger adults are more likely to start Christmas shopping earlier this year than older adults.
• More than half of American adults (51 percent) age 18-24 plan on starting their Christmas shopping at least 1 month earlier this year.
• More than one-third of Americans buy gifts for their children first followed then by presents for a spouse or significant other and a parent.
• While men are most likely to buy a present for their spouse or significant other first (28 percent vs. 8 percent), women are much more likely to buy a present for one or more of their children first (43 percent vs. 25 percent).

Spending
• Sixty-one percent of Americans do not plan on making cut-backs on how much they spend this Christmas season.
- Those who do plan on making cut-backs, plan on cutting back $50 or less.
• To help deal with the weakened economy this season, however, more than one-third of Americans plan to purchase less expensive items (39 percent), to start their Christmas shopping earlier (35 percent) or to purchase presents for fewer people on their list this year (35 percent).
• One-quarter (25 percent) of Americans plan on giving 1-2 fewer presents per-person this year.
• Fifteen percent of Americans plan to drop a friend from their Christmas list this year. This is followed by 13 percent of Americans who plan to drop a co-worker from their list.

Christmas Lists
• Electronics are the most desired gift for this Christmas season (13 percent) followed by financial security (10 percent), good health (6 percent), and car/automotive items (6 percent).

Regional preferences
• Americans residing in the South are slightly more likely to plan on purchasing less expensive items, to start purchasing presents earlier to help stretch their budgets and to change the amount given in donations this year than Americans in other regions.

Pollsters have identified "Walmart moms" as a key voting bloc. How is she planning to tackle this Christmas?

• Walmart moms are more likely than the average American to have already started making their Christmas shopping lists.
• More than one-third of Walmart moms (31 percent) have already started making their Christmas lists versus about one-quarter of Americans overall (23 percent).
• In fact, three-in-ten Walmart moms are planning on starting their Christmas shopping a full three months earlier this year (39 percent vs. 9 percent overall).
• Walmart moms are more likely to start purchasing presents earlier to help stretch their budget, but are less likely than average Americans to purchase less expensive items and/or fewer items forpeople on their lists.
• Walmart moms are less likely to drop someone from their Christmas list this year than Americans overall.
• The top two desired gifts among Walmart moms are electronics (27 percent) and home improvement (22 percent).
• A stable economy (13 percent) and an end to the war in Iraq (11 percent) are the two most desired Christmas presents the next President could give Americans this year.

Among Walmart moms, lower gas prices (30 percent) and bringing the troops home (26 percent) are the most desired Christmas presents from the President-elect.

To assist moms now searching the web for advice on smart spending this season, Walmart is helping them stretch their dollars with an Online Chat on October 9.

The chat, starting at noon central time through 2 pm, will offer questions, answers and advice on holiday planning with select members of its Money Saving Moms community, well known for their blogs on frugal saving tips and ideas.

The survey was conducted by telephone using a computer assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) system by StrategyOne between September 19th and September 22nd, 2008 among a national probability sample of 1,000 adults 18 years of age and older, living in private households in the continental United States. The results have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 at the 95 percent level of confidence.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc

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