We hate to spoil the best laid sales plans of vendors and retailers, but the holiday season is already over for 8.3 percent of the population.
That’s the finding of BestBlackFriday.com, the shopping and personal finance site, in its just-published 2017 Holiday Season survey.
According to principals Eric Jones and Phillip Dengler, 21 million consumers already consider their holiday shopping completed. The good news, the partners reported, is that the number is lower than last year at this time, when 9.6 percent of the buying population was done making their gift-selection rounds.
Moreover, nearly a quarter of Americans (65 million) will wait until December to shop, with the vast majority of the population (80.3 percent) aiming to complete their purchases by Christmas Week.
Most (52.1 percent) plan to spend about the same as last year on holiday presents, although nearly a quarter of the key 18-29 demographic expect to spend more.
The survey also found that a slight majority (51.4 percent) prefer shopping online vs. in-store, although most will shop a mix of both.
The 2017 Holiday Shopping Season survey was conducted online Sept. 26-27 by SurveyMonkey at the behest of BestBlackFriday.com, and includes the feedback of 523 American adults 18 years of age or older.
