Parents Get Early Jump on Holiday Shopping as Back-to-School Season Ends

CHICAGO, Sept. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Even as they finished buying supplies for the new school year and got back into lunch-packing mode, a surprising number of parents were already thinking about their holiday shopping plans, according to new data from YouthBeat, C&R Research's youth and family insight service.

Nearly 38 percent of parents surveyed said they were considering holiday shopping strategies as early as August of this year, well ahead of the season's "official" start. Another 22 percent reported that they'll start thinking about holiday gifts in October. November's Black Friday may be the holiday shopping milestone that matters to retailers, but 18 percent of parents reported that they will begin holiday shopping before Thanksgiving. Only 13 percent plan to start after the turkey is gone. And just five percent admitted that they plan to put off thinking about holiday shopping until December.

Getting a head start on what is arguably one of the most stressful times of the year for parents is nothing new. In a similar survey five years ago, more than half of the parents surveyed said that holiday shopping was already on their minds during the month of October.

"This trend is no surprise, as marketers have been subtly starting the holiday season earlier every year, with more marketing dollars being spent on holiday messages in the early fall than ever before," said Amy Henry, Vice President of Youth Insights at C&R Research.

"But what will be important to watch is whether parents can really get it right this early in the season. Parents might be shopping for things on their children's lists right now, but when marketers select the toys, games and brands they plan to push this season, parents might find that their kids' lists will turn upside down!" added Henry.

Chicago-based C&R Research (www.crresearch.com) is one of the nation's largest, independent full-service research firms. Since 1959, it has provided custom-designed qualitative and quantitative research for a wide variety of business-to-business and business-to-consumer clients. YouthBeat^® (www.youthbeat.com) is C&R Research's youth and family insight service, grounded in ongoing quantitative and qualitative research with kids, tweens, teens and their parents.

SOURCE C&R Research

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