M+E Daily
Giving the Gift of Packaged Media — And Digital Content
Story Highlights
While packaged media remains the perfect gift for many holiday shoppers, digital entertainment goods are increasingly working their way onto shoppers’ lists as well.
Nearly one third of consumers (31 percent) plan to purchase music or movies on disc as holiday gifts in 2011, according to Deloitte’s annual holiday survey. Some 20 percent plan to purchase videogames as holiday gifts, while 35 percent plan to purchase books.
A majority of consumers (59 percent) plan to spend more or the same on holiday gift shopping overall as they did in 2010; Deloitte expects total holiday sales between November and January (excluding motor vehicles and gasoline) to reach between $873 and $877 billion, representing a 2.5 to 3 percent increase from the same period in 2010. A PDF of Deloitte’s full report is here.
Meanwhile, more than a quarter of U.S. shoppers (27 percent) plan to buy digital goods such as music or movie downloads, as well as Facebook or Xbox credits, as gifts this holiday season, according to research from Elastic Path Software. Still, physical gift cards are the preferred way to give digital content: 58 percent of holiday shoppers buying digital gifts plan to give cards redeemable for digital goods.
Notably, the average total gift budget among those planning to purchase digital goods is $440, nearly $100 more that of more “traditional” gift buyers ($349). More stats from Elastic Path here.
