Holiday poll: To Black Friday and beyond
Three percent of consumers have finished their holiday shopping. Then there’s the rest of us. For whatever reason, about two-thirds of consumers hadn’t made any holiday purchases by early November. So after the turkey comes the annual trot to the mall.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday will bookend a busy shopping weekend with half of all U.S. adults planning to shop in stores or online in the four days following Thanksgiving, according to a nationally representative holiday shopping poll from the Consumer Reports National Research Center.
The day of Black Friday has traditionally marked the start of the holiday shopping season, but just as many consumers plan to shop on Saturday or Sunday. So-called Cyber Monday promises to be a bit quieter—nearly twice as many adults plan to shop in stores on Black Friday (28 percent) as shop online the following Monday (16 percent).
While most shoppers (47 percent) plan to make gift purchases over the long weekend, a third of those asked will be looking for things for themselves. So what is on their lists? The top gift items that shoppers plan to buy are clothing (56 percent), electronics (55 percent), toys (55 percent) and gift cards (46 percent). Tops on the “me” list are electronics (39 percent), clothing (33 percent) and food or wine (32 percent).
