The presidential election shouldn’t have a major impact on holiday shopping, according to a survey by RetailNext, although a significant proportion of consumers contend they will spend less depending on which candidate becomes president.
The RetailNext study indicated that 70% of Americans who plan to buy holiday gifts will not change their seasonal spending plans if Donald Trump wins the election. At the same time, 68% of gift buying respondents from across the United States said they will not change their spending plans if Hillary Clinton took the office.
Still, among those who plan to buy gifts this holiday season, 23% will spend less on holiday shopping if Donald Trump is elected president while 21% would spend less on holiday shopping if Hillary Clinton is elected, according to the survey.
RetailNext stated that 90% of consumers plan to buy gifts for this upcoming holiday season. In other findings, among consumers who plan to purchase holiday gifts, more shoppers said they would buy gifts online, at 53%, than in-store, at 45%. Black Friday is the major holiday shopping day for 42% of Americans while 29% picked Cyber Monday.
“There will be slight degrees of variability in store visits and retail performance early in November due to the election,” said Shelley Kohan, vp/retail consulting at RetailNext. “But any residual angst from Election 2016 will likely be well over by Thanksgiving. As this holiday season has two additional shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, an overlapping of the beginning of Hanukkah with Christmas Eve, and a bevy of generally positive economic indicators, the retail industry should close the year relatively strong.”
RetailNext, which specializes in IoT retail analytics for brick-and-mortar stores, sponsored the study of more than 2,000 Americans age 18 years of age and older conducted online by Harris Poll.
