Millions of Americans have finished their holiday shopping weeks ahead of Thanksgiving, the traditional beginning of the shop-til-you-drop period that runs until Christmas. That means promotions from stores and e-commerce companies will have a smaller universe of people to entice.

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According to BestBlackFriday.com:

– 5.35% (13.6 million people) already consider their holiday shopping complete (8.30% last year)
– 18.2% (46.3 million people) will complete their holiday shopping before Nov. 1 (16.99% last year)
– 84.33% will complete their holiday shopping before Christmas Week (80.31% last year)

The second piece of data should also give retailer marketers pause. November 1 is three weeks in advance of Thanksgiving and the traditional holiday shopping kick-off.

The research does give retailers who start their holiday promotions early some hope:

– 22.51% have already started (25.87% this time last year)
– 15.85% to wait until December (24.52% last year)
– 65.19% will start before Thanksgiving, which is a testament of all of the pre-Black Friday sales throughout November. (61.78% last year)

E-commerce companies, led by Amazon.com, should continue their multiyear momentum, based on shopper preferences:

– 55.91% prefer online (51.35% last year)
– 44.09% prefer in-store (48.65 % last year)
– Most will still do a mix of in-store and online shopping

And there is hope that expenditures among holiday shoppers will raise from 2017, for the most part:

– 20.73% to spend more this year (13.32% last year)
– 31.05% to spend less this year (34.56% last year)
– 48.22% will spend about the same as last year (52.12% last year)

The bump to 20.73% from 13.32% confirms what the National Retail Federation has forecast. November and December holiday sales will rise between 4.3% to 4.8% to a range of $717.45 billion to $720.89 billion. However, this is slightly below last year’s 5% growth.

Methodology: The BestBlackFriday.com 2018 holiday shopping survey was administered to 1,069 American adults over the age of 18 on September 30. Participants were 54% female and 46% male. It included 24% of people aged 18 to 29, 24% of people aged 30 to 44, 31% of people aged 45 to 60 and 21% of people over 60 years old.

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