Search
Recommended Products
Related Links




 

 

Informative Articles

10 Tips For Managing Your Time
10 Tips For Managing Your Time By Mark Wardell 1. Plan the following day at the end of each day. This is the time your mind is most clear. If you try to plan your day in the morning, you become distracted by your e-mail, your...

Change Management Can Lead to Rigidity and Resistance to Change
"Today's successful business leaders will be those who are most flexible of mind. An ability to embrace new ideas, routinely challenge old ones, and live with paradox will be the effective leader's premier trait. . . Leaders will have to guide...

Living Life In A Time Starved World
Recently I saw an advertisement for a time management booklet: "Shorter deadlines, competing priorities, endless meetings, interruptions and even higher quality expectations are just some of today's time challenges. And yet the number of hours in...

Strategic Clarity for Communication Management
Over the past few weeks I've been developing plans for a communication project, a media relations campaign. That's prompted me to reflect again on the communication management process by which we transform communication ideas into...

The Ten Pillars of Leadership and Business Development
Leadership is any influence relationship that brings about change…this can be a teacher/student relationship, a parent/child relationship, a politician/citizen relationship, a business owner/employee relationship, a community leader/volunteer...

 
Google
Affluent Market May Disappoint Retailers by Spending Less for December Holiday Gifts

About 25% of the total estimated December holiday (Christmas and Hanukah) gift market will be produced by the wealthiest 10% of U.S. households, despite a reduction of 1.6% in their spending to about $57 billion.

Approximately two-thirds of the respondents expect to spend the same amount for holiday gifts this year as last year. The number who expect to spend "less" (21%) is about double the number who expect to spend "more" (11%).

The survey found the affluent planned expenditures of almost $2,800 per adult, which is about 5 times the $565 average for all adults in a survey recently conducted for The National Retail Federation.

These are the major findings of a new 23 page/20 table report "The Affluent Market for Christmas and Hanukah Holiday Gifts: Forecast of December Holiday Gift Expenditures and the Recipients, Types, and Retail Sources of the Gifts".

Signaling the challenge retailers face in achieving the 5% increase in 2005 holiday gift sales projected by The National Retail Federation and The International Council of Shopping Centers, these results were obtained from the recently completed Fall 2005 "Affluent Market Tracking Study #8" by The American Affluence Research Center.

A continuing series of twice-yearly surveys, these studies track the 12- month economic outlook and spending plans of the wealthiest 10% of Americans, the 11 million households representing about half of all consumer income and


spending and a third of the total US economy. These are the consumers who have helped the more upscale retailers to out perform others in recent years.

The latest survey was designed to also answer such questions as:

1. What do millionaires want to receive as holiday gifts this December? 2. How much will the affluent spend for holiday gifts for different recipients this year? 3. Who will receive gifts from the affluent this year? 4. What types of gifts will the affluent give this year? 5. Where will the affluent buy their gifts this year? 6. When will the affluent do most of their holiday gift shopping?



Highlights of the national survey of 448 men and women in the wealthiest 10% of U.S. households can be found on the AARC website, www.affluenceresearch.org.

The survey participants have an average income of $308,000 and an average net worth of $2.7 million. The survey has a 5% margin of error at the 95% confidence level.



About the author:

Ron Kurtz is a principal of The American Affluence Research Center and The Management Resource Group. Both companies provide marketing research and strategic planning services to prominent clients in the travel and hospitality industries, especially those targeting the affluent market. Ron earned his MBA at Harvard Business School.

For further information: http://www.affluenceresearch.org and http://www.mrgconsultants.com