Despite economic concerns, shoppers to spend more on 2019 holidays

Dive Brief:

About a third of consumers and half of the millennials surveyed said that they plan to spend more during the 2019 holiday season than they had the year prior, according to a recent OpenX Technologies report. Millennial respondents plan to spend 15% more than the average shopper and 25% more than baby boomers, the report also found.
When it comes to marketing channels, 42% of shoppers indicated that they don't have cable or satellite TV or are considering getting rid of the service in the next year. Instead, approximately two-thirds of shoppers are streaming television for eight hours a week on average, and millennials spend 75% more time watching streamed TV than live TV, the report found.
Sixty-eight percent of shoppers said that an advertisement sparked a gift idea, and 43% said they bought a gift after seeing an ad. For millennials, 30% said that ads influenced their decision to make an impulse purchase, which was higher than the percentage for word-of-mouth reviews, according to the report.

Dive Insight:

Though the 2018 holiday season went much better than analysts expected, the OpenX Technologies report points to increased caution behind that optimism. Consumers have been concerned about an upcoming recession for some time now, which could partially explain why the report indicates they're split on the overall health of the economy. Less than 50% of shoppers believe the economy is better than it was last year, but more than 70% think that the economy will improve in 2020, a factor that the report anticipates will drive consumer spending during the holiday season.

Shoppers will continue making online purchases this year as well. Last year, consumers spent about $80.3 billion between November 1 and December 6, an 18.6% increase from the previous year, according to Adobe's 2018 holiday shopping research. The 2019 OpenX Technologies report found that 43% of shoppers think cyber Monday is when they will find the best shopping deals of the year. On average, the respondents to the survey plan to spend $892 during the holiday season, per the report.

What the report makes clear is that retailers must diversify their advertising spending. Per the report, 69% of millennials will use their phones to shop this holiday season, which is higher than the percentage expected to use their laptop or desktop computers. While television is not dead, streaming and digital marketing will be increasingly important this year.