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New Survey by Unity Marketing Finds Gift Giving On the Rise
But Christmas 2005 May Be Challenging for Retailers Nonetheless

Stevens, PA September 6, 2005 — In a new survey of American’s gift shopping through the first half of the year, Unity Marketing found consumers were actively buying gifts and spending more when they made gift purchases. Gifts for specific celebration occasions, such as birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, graduations, and others, were purchased by 96 percent of those surveyed, while gifts for holidays, like Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day and Father’s Day, were bought by 84 percent. In total gifters spent some $563 on average buying gifts through June 30, 2005.

“Drawing upon data collected in previous gifting surveys and projecting first half spending through the end of the year, Unity Marketing expects total gift spending could reach $1,853 on average, up about 7.4 percent over average gift spending of $1,726 last year,” says Pam Danziger, president of Unity Marketing and author of Let Them Eat Cake: Marketing Luxury to the Masses — as well as the Classes.

“But those projections are contingent upon consumers’ impulse to buy gifts remaining as strong through the second half of the year. Clearly the economic impact of the devastating loses from the hurricane and rising gas prices are not factored into those projections. Since American’s are exhibiting a greater propensity to give, we may well find more families directing portions of their Christmas gift budgets toward charities like the Red Cross, Salvation Army, Catholic Charities USA or United Jewish Communities,” Danziger says.

Christmas Gift Spending May Top $908

According Unity Marketing’s Gift Tracker survey of 600 consumers about their gift giving through the first half of the year, Unity Marketing projects Christmas 2005 household gift spending could average $908, up about 10 percent over estimated spending of $826 last Christmas. “At the time of this survey, consumers were very bullish about their spending on the holiday gift season, but these intentions may not hold up as the season progresses,” Danziger says.

Should consumers continue their current gifting preferences, Unity Marketing expects the hot gift categories this season to be:

Giftables, such as flowers and plants, candles, stationery and greeting cards, craft kits and supplies, seasonal decorations, gifts for pets, collectibles and figurines, and other popular-gift items — The most popular gift category through the first half of 2005 purchased by 55 percent of those surveyed, giftables are primarily marketed as gift items and so tend to be priced right for impulse purchases. Flowers and plants, candles, pets accessories and seasonal decorations, in particular, will be popular gift choices this holiday season. But giftables are a relatively low spending category, so they likely won’t contribute much dollar volume growth this season.
Clothing and apparel accessories, including jewelry and watches — This is a category that has been a favorite gift choice through the first half of the year and consumers are likely to find retailers stocked this season with many tempting fashion-forward selections at attractive prices.
Personal care gifts, including perfumes, bath and body ‘lotions and potions,’ and personal care gift sets — Personal care gifts tend to hit the gifting ‘sweet spot’ price of $35 or less. Gift shoppers are likely to continue picking up these affordable, yet indulgent luxuries for people on their gift list.
Home furnishings items, including housewares, decorative accents, tabletop and small appliances — More gifters turned to the home furnishings category for gifts during the first half of 2005, suggesting that home may well turn out to be the ‘sleeper’ category this Christmas season.
Gifts of experience, such as spa days, dining and restaurants, travel and special events — About 22 percent of gifters during the first half of 2005 chose experiential gifts and spent about $83 on average for these gift experiences. With more experience providers recognizing the opportunity to target gifters, this could be a major holiday gift category for Christmas 2005 and beyond.

Gift categories that are likely to be flat for Christmas 2005 based on first half gift giving include consumables, such as food, wine, cookies and other food gifts; entertainment and recreation gifts, including toys, games, books, DVDs and DVD players, computers, etc.; and gift certificates.

Danziger cautions, “It is important to note that these categories — consumables, entertainment/recreation and gift certificates — are extremely popular gifting categories, but purchasing trends through the first half of the year suggest that consumer spending on these categories may continue at current rates and not show significant growth like gifts of experience or home furnishing categories are likely to exhibit.”

Have You Sent Your Gift Yet?

Finally, with all this talk about gifting, have you done your part to help the hurricane victims? Here are links to some charities that are providing immediate relief. Please send your gift today.

Red Cross: http://www.redcross.org/

Salvation Army: http://www.salvationarmyusa.org/USNSAHome.htm

Catholic Charities USA: http://www.catholiccharitiesusa.org/news/katrina.cfm

United Jewish Communities: http://www.ujc.org/

About Gift Tracker Survey

Unity Marketing, on the forefront of market research on the gifting market, has launched a quarterly gift tracking study to measure the pulse of the gift consumer in a longitudinal survey of 500-600 gift buying consumers. Every quarter Unity tracks what gifts they bought during the past quarter, what gift occasions and holidays stimulated those purchases, how much they spent per holiday and occasion, where they bought gifts, the store and product brands they relied upon for gifts and their expectations for future purchases of gifts. The next Gift Tracker survey will be fielded end of September/early October.

Gift Tracker gives retailers and marketers that rely upon the gift market the ability to track the ups and downs in gift purchases in real-time and discover how their target market expects to spend their budgets for buying gifts over the next three months. In addition to the four quarterly tracking studies, marketers also receive a year-end summary of luxury gift consumers’ purchases and spending on the seven major gifting holidays, like Christmas, Mother’s Day and Easter and twelve gifting occasions, including birthdays, anniversary, wedding, friendship, showers, housewarming and other.

Categories included in the Gift Tracker survey include:

Consumables, such as food, candy, wine, gift baskets, etc.
Clothing and/or fashion accessories, such as handbags, shoes, wallets
Jewelry and watches
Personal care products, such as cosmetics, perfumes, bath products, etc.
Home furnishings and household operations products, such as home furnishings, decorative accents, housewares, home textiles, china, glass and tableware, small household appliances, outdoor accents, etc.
Giftables, such as flowers, candles, figurines, collectibles, greeting cards, stationery, seasonal decorations, and other popular gift items
Entertainment and/or recreation goods, such as books, toys, sporting goods, video/audio, DVD’s and entertainment equipment, photographic equipment, computers, games, etc.
Store Gift certificates and/or gifts of cash
Gifts of experience, such as: spa treatments, dining and restaurants, vacations, trips, etc.

Find out more about Unity Marketing's Gift Tracker survey.

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