Consumers Plan to Spend on Black Friday

Consumers Plan to Spend on Black Friday
November 18, 2008

According to the National Retail Federation's (NRF) 2008 Holiday Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, 72 percent of consumers have completed less than 10 percent of their shopping, compared with 2.2 percent of shoppers who said they have completely finished. The survey, which was conducted by BIGresearch, found that consumers will shop in similar gift categories as last year, with clothing and accessories (57.4 percent) and books, CDs, DVDs and video games (55.6 percent) topping the list. Other popular gifts will include new game systems, Blu-ray DVD players and other electronic items (30 percent), toys (41.6 percent), gift cards/gift certificates (53.5 percent), personal care or beauty items (20.8 percent) and jewelry (19.3 percent). Most consumers will not rely on credit for the bulk of this year's holiday purchases. The survey found that 41.5 percent of shoppers will primarily use their debit/check card to pay for holiday items this year, compared to 40.1 percent last year. The number of Americans who will pay with cash is also up slightly this year, at 22.8 percent, compared to 22.1 percent a year ago. People using credit cards as a primary payment method dipped slightly (31.5 percent this year versus 32.3 percent last year).