Restaurants Outpace Expensive Electronics for Christmas Plans In a recent study, Ipsos-Insight notes that while most consumers plan to buy smaller-ticket consumer electronics like
digital still cameras and DVD players, the increase in the number of those who say they will buy bigger-ticket consumer electronics is notable. In addition, findings from the Consumer Electronics
Association (CEA), cited this past week in eMarketer's article, "Caring for Consumer Electronics Customers," confirm those of Ipsos.
Consumer Electronics US Adults Likely to Buy in Next Three
Months (% of respondents)
| 2003 | 2002 |
| Mobile phone | 31% | 26% |
| PC | 26 | 20 |
| DVD player | 24 | 24 |
| Digital still
camera | 22 | 24 |
| Computer printer | 18 | 18 |
| TV game console | 15 | 14 |
| HDTV | 15 | 14 |
| Camera phone | 14 | na |
| Home theatre | 14 | 10 |
| Portable MP3 player | 13 | 8 |
| Satellite TV | 10 | 9 |
Source: Ipsos-Insight, October 2003
And, a study from Boston Consulting Group reports:
Consumers Who Will
"spend as much as they can" or "spend somewhat more" During the 2003 Holiday Season (% of 2,100 respondents)
- Sit-down restaurants 47%
- Consumer electronics 40%
- Travel/vacations 35%
- Home-related items 31%
- Personal items 31%
Source: Boston Consulting Group, November 2003
Finally, most recently BIGresearch says that
consumers say they've completed 36.9% of their shopping so far this year, whereas last year they had completed 38.7% by now. The BIGresearch report found that most purchases during the Thanksgiving
weekend were at discount stores, but almost 1/3 made holiday purchases online.
Top US Consumer Shopping Locations, November 27-29 (% respondents)
- Discount Outlets 43.3%
- Online 31.2%
- Department stores 29.4%
- Specialty stores 24.0%
Source: BIGresearch, December 2003
You can find out more here at eMarketer.