Inmar Intelligence, a data-driven, technology-enabled services company, announced findings from a new consumer holiday survey of 1,000 U.S. adults that aimed to find out how shoppers plan on preparing and celebrating during the 2021 holiday season. The survey found that while consumers are still looking to celebrate during the holidays, nearly half (49 percent) will take precautions and make changes to how they celebrate.
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What are these changes you ask? Forty-two percent of respondents said they will celebrate and/or host smaller gatherings this year and 40 percent said that they will only celebrate with those friends and family members who are fully vaccinated. What’s more, is that one-third (33 percent) won’t be traveling for the holidays. But heading in-store for groceries and gifts will still be a fundamental piece of holiday shopping. Forty-six percent of shoppers said they plan to purchase food and recipe ingredients in the physical store (vs only 19 percent doing this shopping online). Forty-six percent of shoppers associated convenience with in-store shopping compared to online, and 43 percent associate better prices with shopping in-store compared to online shopping.
Today’s shoppers aren’t in any rush just yet to make their holiday gift purchases either. One-third (33%) typically start heading to the stores in November and 27 percent in October. When it comes to purchasing gifts for others, shoppers may splurge a bit more in 2021. Nearly 40 percent (39 percent) said they plan to spend more on gifts than last year, indicating a more positive spending outlook for the year ahead. 66 percent said they plan to spend over $400 on gifts this holiday season and 43 percent plan to spend over $600.
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Additional key findings from the survey include:
- 36 percent of shoppers plan on spending over $300 on holiday meal items (i.e. recipe ingredients, alcoholic beverages, items for hosting & entertaining).
- Nearly half of shoppers (48 percent) said that Black Friday is important to their holiday shopping plan and 49 percent said the same about Cyber Monday.
- 30 percent said that they typically do their last-minute shopping a week before the occasion
“Inmar Intelligence’s new survey indicates that shoppers are still planning to make their way into the physical store for holiday purchases – not to mention, they will spend more than last year,” said Spencer Baird, EVP and President MarTech at Inmar Intelligence. “As shoppers head into the store in the lead up to the holiday season, they will still expect convenience, personalization and availability across all touchpoints, and will look to retailers and brands for inspiration during this time. Inmar’s comprehensive marketing technology and insights will enable more meaningful, personalized customer experiences and fully measurable outcomes this holiday season.”
Inmar Intelligence works to support retailers’ development and execution of an omnichannel shopping experience to meet the rising consumer demand for personalization. It utilizes technology infrastructure that provides the flexibility, security, control and scalability required to guide retailers’ strategic goals. With a technology infrastructure designed to execute machine learning and artificial intelligence at scale, Inmar Intelligence generates actionable insights to better inform planning decisions.
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