Easter is officially on its way and consumers are ready to spend more than last year, according to the latest NRF survey. The NRF 2004 Easter Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, conducted by BIGresearch for NRF, found that 75.6 percent of Americans plan to celebrate Easter. Those who will celebrate plan to spend an average of $107.17, up from $102.76 last year. In all, consumers are expected to spend $10.47 billion on Easter this year.
Survey results indicate that the apparel sector will continue to see increased sales, with the average consumer planning to spend $20.85 on clothing, second only to food at $31.65. Americans also plan to spend $16.87 on gifts and $14.97 on candy. Flowers, decorations, and greeting cards see average spending of less than $10.00 each per person.
Apparel sales are off to a great start this year, said Phil Rist, Vice President of Strategy for BIGresearch. With continued consumer demand and appealing spring fashions, we expect Easter sales to build on that momentum.
Though women’s spending on Easter will be virtually unchanged from last year, spending by men is expected to jump more than 13 percent (13.48%) to $115.91. Setting aside traditional expectations, more men than women are expected to purchase flowers (41.1% vs. 30.8%) and the average man will spend more money on clothing than women ($21.93 vs. $20.00). Last year, the same number of men and women purchased flowers, and women spent more on clothes.
Men will not be taking a back seat on spending this holiday, said NRF President and CEO Tracy Mullin. Retailers that market Easter merchandise solely to women will be missing out on a big piece of the pie.
Once again, Easter candy will be the most-purchased holiday item, with 86.6 percent of consumers planning to purchase chocolate bunnies, jellybeans, marshmallow chicks and other traditional holiday merchandise. Also, four in five consumers (80.9%) plan to purchase food for Easter, 61.9 percent will buy gifts, 53.3 percent will buy greeting cards, and 42.2 percent will buy clothes.
Other Easter facts
- Easter accounts for 13 percent of the dollar volume for holiday flower sales, according to the Society of American Florists. More than 9.1 million lilies, the most popular Easter flower, were sold for the 2002 holiday.
- According to the National Confectioners Association, forty-two percent of people rank the chocolate bunny as the number one "must-have" candy in an Easter basket.
- Easter is the fourth most-popular holiday for sending greeting cards, behind Christmas, Valentine's Day, and Mother's Day, according to the Greeting Card Association.
- More than 90 million chocolate bunnies, 2 million marshmallow chicks per day, and 16 billion jellybeans will be produced for Easter, according to the National Confectioners Association.
- If you laid all the eggs made on the Cadbury Creme Egg plant end to end, they would stretch 12,000 miles.
About the Survey
The NRF 2004 Easter Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey was designed to gauge consumer behaviour and shopping trends related to the Easter holiday. The survey was conducted for NRF by BIGresearch. The poll of 8,038 consumers was conducted from March 3-10. The consumer poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.0 percent.
BIGresearch is a consumer market intelligence firm that provides unique consumer insights that are gathered online utilizing very large sample sizes. BIGresearch's syndicated Consumer Intentions and Actions survey monitors the pulse of more than 7,000 consumers each month to empower its clients with unique insights for identifying opportunities in a fragmented and changing marketplace.
The National Retail Federation is the world's largest retail trade association, with membership that comprises all retail formats and channels of distribution including department, specialty, discount, catalogue, Internet and independent stores as well as the industry's key trading partners of retail goods and services. NRF represents an industry with more than 1.4 million U.S. retail establishments, more than 23 million employees - about one in five American workers - and 2003 sales of $3.8 trillion. As the industry umbrella group, NRF also represents more than 100 states, national and international retail associations. www.nrf.com.
