End-of-year holidays are here! Planning is already well underway, and now it’s all about executing on marketing plans, site adjustments, and other finishing touches online and in-store. Our fourth annual “Holiday Prep” blog series kicks off today and is here to guide you throughout the 2022 holiday season.

What advice can you expect in this blog series? Over the coming weeks, my colleagues across Forrester will provide advice and insights to help you gear up for the holidays. We will advise you on topics from bot management and captchas to customer data collection, marketing tactics, and much more. To get a better sense of this series, you can check out our running collection of posts from past years here.

In the meantime, a few (early) insights into consumer thinking about the 2022 holiday season, from Forrester’s July 2022 Consumer Energy Index And Retail Pulse Survey:

  • Anticipated 2022 holiday budgets. Eighteen percent of US online adults surveyed in July expect to spend more this holiday season than last (2021). Another two out of five expect to spend about the same amount again. Among UK online adults, just 11% expect to spend more this year, and another 40% anticipated spending being about the same as last year. Just 9% of French online adults expect to spend more this year, and a little over one-third expect to spend the same as last year.
  • Digital continues to be important for store shopping. Just over one-quarter of US online adults plan to check online whether an item is available in the store before they go into stores. That’s true also of one in five UK online adults and 13% of French online adults. One in 10 US and French online adults plan to use digital and contactless payments in-store more than they did last year, and 17% of UK online adults say they will do the same. Around one in six plan to use in-store pickup regularly this holiday season across France, the UK, and the US.
  • Top considerations for holiday shoppers. Approximately one-quarter of French, UK, and US online adults say they have less money to spend this year than last. About one in 10 US and UK online adults plan to look for more environmentally friendly/sustainable products to give as gifts, slightly lower than the 15% of French respondents who say the same. Consumers everywhere will be on the lookout for value for their money: For example, 44% of US online adults plan to watch for deals and special offers online, as will 34% of UK online adults and 28% of French online adults.

Stay tuned for more holiday insights in the coming weeks! And please get in touch if you have any questions — Forrester clients, our analyst colleagues are happy to speak with you. Wishing you a very successful end-of-year holiday season!