From Kevin Coupe's The Morning News Beat, a pointer to the Conference Board's holiday spending study. According to their survey: the average amount of money Americans plan to spend on presents is dropping 11% to $417 per household. There are some variations there -- for example, families on the West Coast are expected to fork out a scant $376 compared to those big spenders in the upper Midwest (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin) who are expected to spend $550.
However, the National Retail Federation's got its own set of numbers, and according to them, American families will spend $832 on their holiday shopping this year, a 1.6% bump over last year.
Surveys and polls are imperfect indicators, because there's no way we media consumers can be sure of how the survey respondents were chosen or what demographic factors are at play. But what we can take away from this exercise: look at who's coming up with these numbers and ask what reason they have to disseminate them. For example, it makes sense for the NRF to contend that American shoppers are bravely holding the line against recessionary measures. And perhaps it makes sense for the organization that supports business management and the Consumer Confidence Index to put out the kind of numbers that underline a need for cost-cutting within certain companies.
That is pretty interesting. Then I can look at my own Christmas budget and as long as I'm under the NRF figure then I must be saving more than other people! How weird.
Posted by: amanda | 2008.11.25 at 15:12