Holiday gift cards sales to drop this year
Atlanta Business Chronicle - by Tierney Plumb
Gift cards -- pieces of plastic that don’t go on sale -- are going to have a hard time competing with this year’s big holiday bargains expected on everything from clothes to DVDs, according to a new survey.
Gift card sales will fall nearly 6 percent this holiday season to $24.9 billion, down from $26.3 billion last year.
The survey, which polled nearly 9,000 consumers, was conducted for the Washington, D.C.-based National Retail Federation by BIGresearch in early November.
Fewer people (53.5 percent) plan to purchase gift cards this year than last year (56.6 percent). Gift card shoppers will be spending an average of $147.33 on the cards, down nearly $10 from last year.
“Retailers may need to make minor adjustments to holiday plans as fewer people may be hitting the stores in January to redeem gift cards,” said Tracy Mullin, head of NRF, in a statement.
The survey found that the biggest gift card spenders this year will be men, who will spend an average of $156.98 on the cards, and Americans over age 45, who will spend $168.02.
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