How US consumers plan to shop this holiday season: inflation, budgets, and demographic differences

Inflation is hitting consumers hard, according to new research—but not hard enough to make most of them tighten their spending this holiday season.

Based on responses from 3.5K consumers in the US and Canada, a new survey from Klaviyo and Qualtrics finds that 65% of consumers plan to spend either the same amount or more on 2022 holiday gifts compared to last year.

Across demographic lines, 99% of consumers are aware that inflation is affecting the cost of goods and services, and 67% say it’s already affecting their purchasing decisions. Economic headwinds are forcing the vast majority of consumers to spend more on utilities, transportation, and food, beverage, and groceries compared to last year (73%, 67%, and 61%, respectively).

To offset these costs, most consumers are spending less on discretionary purchases in sectors like hobbies (29%), out-of-home entertainment (28%), apparel and accessories (28%), jewelry and watches (27%), and home decor (27%).

Only 2% of respondents say inflation will not have a strong impact on their spending plans—which means that by Black Friday Cyber Monday 2022, inflation will impact how more than 90% of consumers spend their money.

But all hope isn’t lost for retail. According to the research, consumers still plan to spend—a lot—over the holidays.

Different demographics are picking and choosing their discretionary spending more carefully, making ends meet by increasing budgets for some categories and decreasing them for others.

That means brands from ecommerce businesses to brick-and-mortar stores have space to increase ecommerce sales this holiday season—as long as they can get smarter about who, specifically, they’re targeting with which product categories.

Dive into the 778 data points here: https://www.klaviyo.com/marketing-resources/ecommerce-trends-consumer-spending