2024 Holiday Gatherings and Shopping Report

Traditional, Practical & Digital

Shopping for Gifts

Holiday Shopping Early, Often, and Online!

In most parts of the country, as soon as back to school displays are down in stores, Halloween is already up (as early as August for some!). And, Halloween comes down and converts to holiday shopping immediately on November 1st. These serve as physical reminders that holiday shopping is upon us, but as our Omnichannel 2024 Report revealed, many of us are shopping online more than ever before, which means far more year-round shopping is taking place. Indeed, the very existence and a major goal for Prime Day — Amazon’s event that started in 2015 — is to create a new Black-Friday-Cyber-Monday-esque shopping “event” that takes place in the middle of summer, untethered to a specific holiday.

Survey findings, indeed, show that people are starting holiday shopping earlier, shopping more often, and shopping more online. Last year, 41% of respondents said they’ll start shopping on or before Halloween, compared to 53% who plan to start earlier this year.

Of those 53%, a staggering 25% of people now think of shopping for the holiday season as a year-round event, and an additional 24% begin shopping around Halloween. 

Only 27%, roughly 1 in 4 people, now start their shopping experience during the BFCM shopping weekend. The remaining respondents are those who start shopping in December.

Finding Inspiration IRL (but Shopping Online)

Additionally, while many people do still flip through paper gifting catalogs or like browsing physical stores for gifting ideas, the majority of consumers plan to shop and make their actual purchases online.

Click or Brick? Holiday Shoppers Choose Both

86%

86% of shoppers will do some online shopping for holiday gifts, while only 14% of shoppers plan to do all of their holiday gift shopping in-store. This percentage continues to decline: In 2023, 16% of shoppers planned to shop entirely in-store for holiday gifts.

While the overall trend shows a preference for mixing online and in-store shopping, a generational breakdown reveals differences: Younger shoppers are moving away from in-store, with only 4% of Gen Z and 8% of Millennials opting for exclusively in-store shopping, compared to 20% of Baby Boomers.