Christmas Spending Projection Drops to 8 Year Low
By Barry Ritholtz - November 24th, 2008, 2:12PM
Gallup reports that:
“Americans’ projected average Christmas spending this year, $616, is the lowest in Gallup’s 10-year history of tracking this question in its current format, and provides further evidence of the heavy toll the current economic turmoil is taking on America’s retailers.”
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Longstanding readers know I don’t place a lot of stock in these surveys — Why? Because what people do, and what they SAY THEY THINK THEY ARE GOING TO DO are often worlds apart.
Survey:
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Hat tip Economix
Source:
Christmas Spending Projection Drops to New Low
Projected shopping at department stores takes biggest hit
Frank Newport
Gallup, November 19, 2008
http://www.gallup.com/poll/111976/Christmas-Spending-Projection-Drops-New-Low.aspx
November 24th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
It’s like foot traffic. Totally unreliable.
November 24th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
no intrade market for confirmation/comparison. yet.
November 24th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Anecdotal evidence – The wife was out to the malls in Oak Brook, IL a couple of times this weekend. Said they were very, very crowded.
November 24th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
unreliable maybe, but I did get this from my sister this morning….
Kim, Jim, Alex and I drew names for the family for this year’s Christmas Present Swap. We made the executive decision to change the gift limit from $50 down to $15. I know it’s not much but it makes the search for the perfect gift even more challenging and meaningful.
November 24th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Any chance you could post the actuals so we could see the how well the poll forecast in the past?
Also this shopping thing…. This bothered me a lot when I went shopping on Saturday. I couldn’t get a parking spot. The mall lot was bursting. Now granted I am in Canada – north of Toronto – but I can’t remember a year I couldn’t get a parking spot in November.
Oh and we have 2 feet of snow too. This is the earliest winter in a long time too … which means we use heat, lot’s of heat : )
November 24th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
First I need to concoct a really good fight with my wife. One in which resentment simmers for the next four weeks, only to boil over right around the 23rd. From there, she’ll play right into my hands…head off to her mother’s house while I stay alone having had to spend nothing (~0.00 USD) on Christmas presents and getting to watch crappy bowl games on the boob tube!
November 24th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
I’m looking for better than expected Black Friday results due to lower gas prices.
As for the season as a whole I ask myself, “only an 8 year low?” That must not be in real $ terms.
November 24th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
“Americans’ projected average Christmas spending this year, $616…”
Yes, but after factoring in bailout expenses the number rises to $24,616 per person and counting.
November 24th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Yeah… we’ll see how accurate that call is in a month or so…
I’m willing to bet its not going to be as bad as “people” say it will be, meaning people are going to spend just about what they did last year… maybe a little less.
Of course, my opinion is every bit as quantifiable as the Gallup survey.
The malls in the Portland/Vancouver area were busy this weekend. Oh, and I filled up my gas tank this morning, and it was $1.99 a gallon for regular. Yee haw.
November 24th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Wow, much selling into the close. Nobody wants to hold anything “long term” anymore.
November 24th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Check that – maybe not. Craziness all around. We’re in a trading environment where 8-10 minutes is an eternity.
November 24th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
I think the average # will be $900 for Christmas spending (which would be a 10 yr high).
The key words being AVERAGE and CHRISTMAS SPENDING.
For a lot of people, times are tough, but I do not think people on average quit/slow down spending on Christmas,
I think they spend more. (Old habits are hard to break come hell or high water).
I will be spending the same.
November 24th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
The graph would be real interesting overlayed with what people actually spent in those years.
November 24th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
At Happy Hour, I’ve been playing a few xmas songs like “If we make it through December” and “Daddy Won’t Be Home Again for Christmas” Helps w/ liquor sales!
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November 24th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Well, my wife and I watched Scrooge, (Peter Schiff), who has received his apology from Ben Stein (BS)..
Says our economic crisis has only just begun…
Will the seer be right again? Stay tuned..
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/134633/‘Crisis-Only-Just-Beginning’-Right-About-the-Crash-Peter-Schiff-Sees-More-Pain-Ahead?tickers=%5Edji,%5Egspc,%5Eixic,SPY,DIA,QQQQ,GLD
November 24th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Family is calling us to agree on gift limits: a few presents for the kids , one or none for adults, and none for those not attending. Can’t say that I disagree. I think that this year is going to be bad–a real record breaker. But this is good news, because the sooner the high price of X-mas bottoms out the better! Right?
November 24th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
I posted earlier about the extremely full malls in Canada. Found this clip off of tonights CTV news, and mall owners are saying traffic is up 5%. Take a look, recognize sometimes things aren’t as bad as we talk ourselves into believing they are. Sales will likely pull retail through in Canada, and from some of the postings above, there may be more buying out there than people realize.
http://watch.ctv.ca/news/latest/christmas-price-cuts/
November 24th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
I was also at the mall last wkd . in Wilmington DE, best buy was packed, took forever to find a parking spot, annoying. I asked the salesman if it was busy all day and he said that it was. Apple store was packed as usual. My own ground floor research was still that people didn’t have as much stuff as they were walking out though. Very detailed research. Gas is also below $2 here.
Hard to say how hard it is being felt here, on my way out of the busy mall parking lot someone was standing in the middle of intersection with a cardboard sign, unemployed.
November 25th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
Apparently it’s not just the mortar and brick retailers suffereing….
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122764819199157439.html
Nobody was expecting online shopping to be immune from the economic downturn, but most forecasts had been calling for at least a smidgen of growth. Now, even that hope is damped.
For the first 23 days of November, online sales declined 4% to $8.2 billion from $8.5 billion the same time last year, according to market-research firm comScore Inc. The firm projects that retail spending online in the months of November and December will total $29.2 billion, flat from the same period last year — a dreary sign for online retailers, many of which had grown accustomed to double-digit gains.
The figures follow numbers from October, when online sales grew only 1% versus a year earlier.
“The decline that we’re seeing is unprecedented,” said Andrew Lipsman, a senior manager at comScore.