Money & The Economy

U.S. Consumers Expect to Spend Same or Less in 2011 Holiday Shopping Season Due to Economy

AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 14, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — A telephone survey conducted among 1,000 U.S. adults by Ipsos Public Affairs commissioned by Offers.com found that, given the state of the economy, 87 percent of respondents are planning to spend the same or less during the upcoming holiday season than they did in 2010.  The survey also found that almost half of consumers have been looking for deals throughout the year when shopping for those on their holiday gift list, while just 18 percent are planning to wait to shop on Black Friday or Cyber Monday. Only 48 percent plan to look for online coupons or coupon codes to stretch their holiday spending dollars before making a purchase.

Other highlights from the survey asked specifically about holiday shopping plans include:

  • 52 percent of respondents spend more than an hour researching the best price for each holiday purchase, while 7 percent of consumers report to spend more than 6 hours researching each purchase they make for the holidays.
  • 27 percent have been keeping their eye on online specials and daily deals, and 50 percent turn to newspaper or magazine coupons for savings.
  • 69 percent of holiday shoppers would prefer to shop in a retail store rather than online if the merchandise and deals were the same, while 47 percent said they would shop online if the deals were better than in stores.

“With a majority of U.S. consumers being not likely to look for online coupons or coupon codes when they shop this holiday season, millions of consumers may let savings pass them by,” said Steve Schaffer, CEO of Offers.com.  “Online shopping can provide much better value, selection, and convenience than shopping at retail, and online coupons offer extra discounts that can’t be found elsewhere. The team at Offers.com makes it easy to save money and time while shopping at any time of the year, because we manually screen thousands of the best available offers and deals on a daily basis to ensure that they work.”

Offers.com provides consumers with easy-to-find online coupons, coupon codes, offers, and deals from thousands of online stores, and the Offers.com Holiday Savings Center provides consumers with unique and helpful content such as checklists, shopping tips, and survival guides.  Offers.com also organizes deals and provides guidance around specific holidays and trends such as Halloween, Black Friday 2011 Deals, and Cyber Monday 2011 Deals.

Additional demographic findings of the holiday spending poll include:

  • While just 16 percent of adults with a household income of $75,000 or more indicated that they were not at all likely to seek out online coupons or coupon codes, almost three times as many (44 percent) of those with a household income of $25,000 gave the same answer.
  • 73 percent of respondents aged 18-34 would prefer to shop in retail stores if the merchandise and deals were the same, but if the deals were better online, 50 percent would shop online instead.
  • Similar to other age groups, 51 percent of respondents aged 18-34 have used newspaper or magazine coupons in the last 30 days.

The survey was conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs in September 2011.  For the survey, a nationally representative sample of 1,001 randomly-selected adults aged 18 and over residing in the U.S. was interviewed by telephone via Ipsos’ U.S. Telephone Express omnibus.  With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate within +/-3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire population of adults in the U.S. been polled.

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Rich Mitchell

Rich Mitchell is the editor-in-chief of Conservative Daily News and the president of Bald Eagle Media, LLC. His posts may contain opinions that are his own and are not necessarily shared by Bald Eagle Media, CDN, staff or .. much of anyone else. Find him on twitter, facebook and

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One Comment

  1. sooo….. what this article is saying is that offers.com wants your business, and you are just going to say “screw it” to all the local retailers, your neighbors, the mom and pop stores, the bread and butter of this nation, to shop online, and across borders, to save a buck (then turn around and pay $6.95 for shipping). brilliant. I think I will shop here in my own neck of the woods, enjoy the shopping atmosphere, help my community survive the financial crisis, save all that wasted money on shipping, and spend it on a festive drink at the local pub, helping out another local business. Merry Christmas everyone! Shop Local, Eat local, Be local!

  2. Some years ago, like in the late 90’s American’s decided they were going to save the money they normally spent for Christmas and instead just save it since the economy wasn’t doing so well. American’s had gotten tired of spending their money on items that by the end of the 90’s were mostly coming from China. This displeased the American consumer. So they just stopped buying for Christmas. Of course I’m not saying the people didn’t buy anything, they did, but not no where near what they had been buying for decades.

    This caught the businesses off guard in a bad way. They lost 60% of sales that Christmas, and nearly wiped them out. Well, they learned their lesson the first time and the next Christmas we saw how well they learned that lesson. The businesses beginning in the 2000’s didnt’ carry no where near as much stuff as they ever had before since the 1950’s. Looking at Lowe’s, Wal Mart, and a couple of other merchintiel’s there was just one aisle of things for people to choose for Christmas and most all that was just junk, cheap stuff made in China. Now, even that is gone. Stores that I have canvased don’t carry any Christmas gift items whatsoever. What American stores are doing these days is discounting their normal inventory for the whole month of December, and that’s it. You might find some of those stupid jewelery cabinets at Wal Mart, but you won’t find anything else other than what the store carries all year anyway.

    I’m not going to tell you how it used to be because most of you below the age of 45 or so wouldn’t have any idea what I was talking about. You know it’s really weird to say that anyone who is twenty or so years younger than I am have no idea what this nation used to be like because it changed so fast, so completely, so wrongly that in a matter of twenty years, or less than one generation what was is now gone, and probably forever. I just think of all the tens of thousands of businesses that used to exist in this country, that were non union that were places where you could literally go to work for right after high school and work there for the next 40 years and retire from that one place of employment. Well, even those jobs don’t exist anymore. You can’t go to work for a company right out of high school and stay there until you retired 40 years from now, and expect to get pay raises and promotions, and in many cases would end up running the company. That was how people stayed at one place back not that long ago, probably as late as the 80’s. But after that, those jobs were gone.

    America has set itself up to fall from being the business powerhouse that no one, not even me, would have ever expected it would have gotten this bad. America is void practically of all the jobs that created the middle class that bought the houses, cars, washer’s and dryer’s, and saved up thousands of dollars, that wasn’t being limited by the Federal government, i.e. the IRA account, that gave money for banks to grow and have more money on hand to make more loans for small businesses, and home buyers. Now that’s all gone. Sure, home buying and car buying is still happening but not enough to keep this nation healthy economically well enough to be the kind of nation that I remember it being.

    And just think, America never, NEVER was in such a bad long term situation that whole sector’s of the economy was missing, and no one believes those sector’s will ever come back? What the hell is that? Every generation has always had a future to look forward to. Even during the World Wars people still had a positive outlook for a future for their children. Now, I can’t think of any private sector jobs or industries that would not be negatively affected by anything that would come from the government. American’s are hoping our oil and gas industries will come back, but there is no guarantee they will. If those jobs don’t come back then there won’t be enough other companies come back to provide American’s with the money they would like to have to be able to continue that “American tradition”, of the dozen’s liberal’s have gotten rid of with all their different agenda’s, so that we who are older than 45 would have something that is familiar we could enjoy. At least for awhile anyway. Because if American traditions continue to evaporate into thin air like they’ve been doing for the past twenty years, there will be nothing at all left of what America used to look like. Anyone who grows up in this country will think everything has always been like this, screwed up. And when they hear liberals talk about how screwed up the country is, these young people will think, “So what, that’s normal.” But it’s not, not by a long shot.

    If they just knew how this nation used to be just a few years ago it would blow their minds.

  3. This is why I say that American’s future buying for Christmas depends on what the Socialist/Communists in the government allow us to do by their manipulation of our economy and suppression of our economy through dumb economic decisions made by the Socialist Democrats.

    For the first time America’s buying power has been taken from the hands and control of the people and put into the hands of Socialists like Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, Bernie Sander’s, Obama, George Soros, Maurice Strong(please look this evil, mentally disturbed, dangerous man up, it will blow your mind) instead of mom and pop stores, the private individually owned oil and gas company, and all the private individuals who used to own and run all the stores, companies, corporations, and banking, investment. People used to be able to go to their local bank and take out a savings plan just for Christmas. They may still exist but not like they used to. Nothing that used to exist is gone that made Christmas that time of year that gave people hope and joy, and made life worth living. The excitment of the children on Christmas morning when they would come into the living room and see all the presents under the tree.

    Liberals hate that image, because of multiculturalism liberals believe that some Black racist 60’s radical militant’s idea of what Christmas was to his people was not what it should be for a Black kid. Really? Tell that to the Black kid who on Christmas morning is looking in wonder and amazement at a brand new shinny bicycle! And Kawansa looks like some BS that it is. “What, I don’t get any presents anymore because we celebrate…what now??! Liberals stirring up the level of hatred that they wanted Blacks to have towards White people has but a wet Black blanket on what Christmas used to be. Liberals are the one’s who used Marxist judges to pass opinion’s that the word “Christ” is a Christian reference that no public thing or place should allow to be put where the some person walking by could see and become “offended” by it. And that using the word “Christmas” is the support of a religious belief that is against the “law” of the “separation of church and state” that is in our Constitution. Well, that is a lie because there is no such law in our Constitution. It is just something that Thomas Jefferson wrote to (Sam Adam’s)? about the government being controled by the “church” like it was in England, who are controled by the Church of England and if you aren’t a member you can’t work sort of thing he didn’t want to see happen here. It has absolutly NOTHING to do with putting a manger scene out in front of a public school, or place of business, and that a Christian thing might offend…who? Some atheist or Muslim? That’s the only people who would be so-called “offended”.

    So it’s been since we allowed liberals to challenge our countries religious beliefs that are the foundation of what holds our society together, that has nearly ourlawed Christmas. Where places like Target has adopted a company policy that it will not allow signs, banners, or anything in it’s inventory that has the writting of the words “Merry Christmas” on it, or out front on the store. They’ve gone so far as to not allow Salvation Army people to take contributions out front of any of it’s stores because the people ringing that familiar bell have Merry Christmas written all over their signs and stuff. What bull crap! What unAmerican activity! What anti-Christian posturing! What a sell out of anyone who won’t allow the words “Merry Christmas” but instead a liberal New World Order word has been coined, “Happy Holiday’s” has been more acceptable.

    My question is, WHAT HOLIDAY’S? HOLIDAYS FOR WHAT? Happy Holidays has been used in conjunction with Merry Christmas for decades, but liberal multiculturalist believe America would be more like “everyone else” if we dropped the Christian part because there are people who don’t do anything that has to do with any Christian celebration during this time of year. Really? What are THEY celebrating for? What is it that they would be celebrating if they aren’t celebrating Christmas? Kwansa? Or some pagan holiday the Druids came up with, some kind of cultism? Yeah, yeah, I know all about the paganism association some people have accused Christmas of actually being, and Hercules’ birthday and all that crap. I don’t care and do you know why? Because it’s an American TRADITION that’s why, that has been celebrated for over two hundred years in some form or another, long before Karl Marx was born!!

  4. I doubt seriously that my wife or I will spend any money on gifts this year….again. My wife will buy something small for her neice, and daughter’s two small kids are easy to buy for, like something from the Dollar Store will excite them. It sadden’s me to no end how this countries representatives didn’t have the guts, or the moral fiber to stand up against these liberals who were making false accusations against the things they believed were wrong that White Christian conservatives had been doing back in the late 50’s and 60’s, that they couldn’t come back later and refute? And do it before we lost control of the TV media that had become so important to the American people during the Vietnam War. Walter Cronkite and the rest of the media anchormen who started talking out against the war should have been reminded of their obligation to reporting the facts and truth to the American people. That telling of just the governments side of things began back in World War Two when Roosevelt ordered so much propaganda fed to the American people, that by the time the Vietnam War came around, preaching the government’s propaganda was normal for the media to do. We were spoon fed Socialism and the Communists attitude towards America’s involvement in “other people’s problems” that those in the Democrat party wanted to become the attitude of the American people. Mind Control was rumored to be used by those in the government who did not have America best interest at heart.

    I don’t know how many American’s still believe that this nation is worth saving, and that maybe it would be a waste of time to try to fight the deeply entrenched Socialists in our government. I’ve heard that there are only twenty percent of American’s who call themselves liberal. I don’t know how many would actually admit to being a Socialist or outright Communist. But now we see the Occupier’s openly walking around admitting to being Communists and Nazi’s. And the worse part is they are claiming to they being the “revolution” that we heard was coming to America, yeah, instead of the Tea Party member’s being the one’s who were actually those who the revolution belonged to? What kind of people were the original revolutionary’s? Were they men who were Socialist and Communists? Of course those ideologies didn’t actually exist back then, but they did in a different form. Those ideologies existed by greedy men, power mongers, and “robber baron’s” were those who controled the money, political power, major corporations of that time. The Church of England would be a major corporation back then because it holds that same kind of power over the government, the Crown, back then, that Wall Street has over our government now.

    I guess money and power like the kind found in Washington, and other influences found that are having the same affect that the Church of England had back then was what drove our forefather’s to the New World, the Colonies, where they believed they could start over. Well, what frieghtens me is, this is it, there isn’t any place for us to escape to so that we can start over again like our forefathers did. There are enough conservatives who are in our government and big business who would know how to use our founding documents to start a new nation for people who believed man shouldn’t have to answer to government for their needs, and that men have been given freedom and liberty by God. It is God who these Socialist and Communist reject. And, sure, we know as Christian’s that those who reject God, damn their souls to (hell) a place outside of God’s love and help.

    I do not want to see Christmas OUTLAWED because no one in Washington has the guts to demand the left stop making laws that are against the very things that make America, America. And before that, demand that the left not deconstruct America for their own selfish purposes of power and greed. And, yeah, we can make that accusation against them even when they are making that accusation against us. The proof is what have they done by garnering financial support from many, many more wealthy financial corporations than Republican’s ever have. But will the peole believe us? We have been lied to so many times that we don’t trust our own government anymore. Democrats are the ones who’ve gotten hold of the law making process, not Republican’s, and especially not conservatives. There used to be such a thing as conservative Democrats, but I suppose the Socialists and Communists have made threats to ruin the law careers of those who oppose them for any of them to take the chance.

    That has spoiled Christmas for many of us, and that is what decay of our governing processes has caused us to become insecure, and insecurity breeds fear of the unknown. It’s much worse than believing in Santa Claus, because you just never knew whether or not he existed, but you wanted to believe because it made you build…..HOPE!

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