Survey: Holiday Spending Ticks Up And Soars At Amazon (AMZN)

A new survey from ChangeWave shows that holiday spending has improved in 2009 compared with 2008 and purchasing activity at Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) is soaring.

The study of 2,954 consumers was completed on November 10.

Of those surveyed, “A total of 9% say they’ll be `Spending More Money’ on holiday shopping this season while 32% say they’ll `Spend Less ‘— but that’s a huge 21 point improvement over November 2008 (when only 4% said they’d Spend More vs. 48% Less).”

Amazon posted the most impressive gains among shoppers who said that they would spend more money with the company in the next 90 days. That number rose from 14% in August to 22% in November.

Thirty-one percent of those polled said that they would shop for computer and home entertainment devices over the next 90 days. Amazon also did well among these shoppers. “The major discounters and wholesale clubs — including Costco (COST; 26%; up 2-pts), Wal-Mart (WMT; 19%; up 2-pts), Sam’s Club (11%; up 2-pts) and Target (TGT; 7%; up 1-pt) — are also showing upticks in home entertainment shopping for the holidays.”

The anticipation for success may already be built into the share prices of most of these companies. Amazon, Costco and Wal-Mart are all trading near their 52-week highs.

Douglas A. McIntyre