Compete Holiday Insights™ 2010

in Retail & Consumer Products by Debra Miller Arbesman — October 28, 2010 at 4:57 pm | 4 comments

Slowly but surely, consumers are working their way through their holiday shopping list. The newest Compete Holiday Insights™ survey finds that as of October 24, 54 percent of consumers surveyed had started their holiday shopping for the year and 23 percent had completed more than a quarter of their total shopping, up from 50 percent and 16 percent, respectively, two weeks ago.

Along with the increased shopping activity came increased spending.  Offline spending doubled while online spend increased 39 percent.  It will be interesting to watch this trend as we get closer to crunch time.

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Most categories saw a lift in purchase activity relative to two weeks prior. Clothing and shoes were the most widely purchased items during the week of October 18-24, with 46 percent of shoppers purchasing this category, up 11 percentage points. Toys and games ranked a close second with 44 percent, up 9 percentage points. Gift cards become a popular gift item, with 36 percent of shoppers opting for these stocking stuffers, up from just 6 percent.

While Wal-Mart and Target continue to rule offline, Amazon rules online. Amazon captured the hearts, and wallets, of 53 percent of all online shoppers.

Compete Holiday Insights™ will be your source for tracking consumers’ online and offline holiday shopping, so stay tuned for more posts like this in the coming weeks

About Debra Miller Arbesman: Debra Miller Arbesman is senior associate, retailer and consumer products at Compete, a Kantar Media company that helps brands improve their marketing based on the online behavior of millions of consumers.

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