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Gift
Tracker Service - 1Q2006: Despite rising gas prices, gift shoppers spent on average $407 buying gifts during the first quarter of 2006, including $168 for gifting holidays and $239 on gift occasions, like birthdays, anniversaries and other celebrations. Purchases of gifting accessories, such as gift cards, gift bags and gift wrap, added an additional $19 to the total, bringing the average amount spent on gift giving to $426. If gift purchasing continues at its current rate, shoppers could spend as much as 10 percent more buying gifts in 2006 over 2005’s average of $1,934, based upon the latest survey of consumer gift purchases conducted by Unity Marketing (www.unitymarketing.online). During the first quarter, more people bought Valentine’s Day gifts (67 percent in 2006 vs. 57 percent in 2005) and spent more buying those gifts ($121 vs. $73 in 2005). Mother’s Day gifting is expected to rise this year with 75 percent of shoppers planning to buy gifts for Mom as compared to 67 percent last year. Father’s Day gifting looks equally bright, with 58 percent planning to buy a Dad’s day gift, as compared with 48 percent last year, according to Unity Marketing’s Gift Tracker survey. “The gifting market is especially important to the nation’s retailers and not just during the fourth quarter, but throughout the entire year,” explains Pam Danziger, president of Unity Marketing and author of Let Them Eat Cake: Marketing Luxury to the Masses — as well as the Classes. “Approximately 40 percent of gift shoppers’ annual budgets are spent buying gifts for gifting occasions that occur throughout the year. In 2005 consumers spent an estimated $282 billion buying gifts, which is roughly 10 percent of the total $2.8 trillion consumer retail market.” Top Gift Choices in 2006 During the first quarter 2006, the top gift choices were:
(A complete top ten list of the most popular gifts is available to media on request) Nearly 20 Percent of Gifters Have Already Started Christmas 2006 Shopping And more good news for retailers about prospects for gifting through 2006, some 17 percent of gifters have already started their Christmas 2006 gift shopping and have spent on average $346 on those purchases. “The gifting market is a unique opportunity for retailers to achieve exponential marketing. Through gifting, marketers touch two target markets personally and directly, i.e. the person who buys the gift and the person who receives it,” Danziger says. “For retailers and marketers, gifting has all the promotional power of sampling and word-of-mouth, but gifting intensifies it through the unique emotional connection between the giver and the recipient. A positive gifting experience can lead the happy gift recipient back to the store where their gift came from or to buy up more of the same thing that made them so happy in order to satisfy their own gift-giving needs. Because it is ‘two times two,’ gifting is exponential marketing,” Danziger concludes. About Gift Tracker Survey Unity Marketing, on the forefront of market research on the gifting market, conducts a quarterly gift tracking study to measure the pulse of the gift consumer in a longitudinal survey of 800 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 Gift Tracker survey is a subscription service which is customized to include subscribers’ specific gift products, their brands and key competitor brands in order to measure the effectiveness of marketers’ and retailers’ success in the gifting market. The next Gift Tracker survey will be fielded early June 2006 to track 2Q2006 gift purchases. For media: Charts, tables and graphs are available upon request. About Pam Danziger and Unity Marketing Advising such clients as Lenox, Cartier, PPR, Rémy Amerique, Phillips/Norelco, Stearns & Foster, Prudential Fine Homes, Baccarat, The World Gold Council, The Conference Board and American Express, Danziger taps consumer psychology to help clients navigate and master the changing luxury marketplace. Her latest book, Let Them Eat Cake: Marketing Luxury to the Masses—as well as the Classes, (Dearborn Trade Publishing, $27, hardcover) is in book stores now. She is the author of the recent book, Why People Buy Things They Don't Need: Understanding and Predicting Consumer Behavior (Chicago: Dearborn Trade Publishing, 2004). Her new book, Shopping: Why We Love It and How Retailers Can Create the Ultimate Customer Experience, will be published Fall 2006. She has appeared on CNN’s In the Money, NBC’s Today Show, CNBC, CNN International, CNNfn, CBS News Sunday Morning, Fox News’ Your World with Neil Cavuto, ABC News Now, NPR’s Marketplace and is frequently called upon by the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, American Demographics, Women’s Wear Daily, Forbes, USA Today, Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune for commentary and insight. Price: $1,875 Find out more about Unity Marketing's Gift Tracker survey. |
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