Bigger budgets, fewer names

1. Budgets are back, but the extra money is going to the celebration, not the presents. Gift spending barely moved. The growth went to food, décor, dining out and entertainment, the things people cut last year.
2. How much of the center shoppers use matters more than how long they stay. Spending rises with time only up to a point, then levels off. It keeps climbing with the variety of stores a shopper plans to visit.
3. The enclosed mall is the one channel gaining ground, and its shoppers are worth more. Mall-bound shoppers plan bigger budgets, longer visits and more stops than everyone else.
4. Shoppers who buy food or drink on their trips are the big spenders. People who grab something on every trip plan to spend several times what people who never do plan to spend.
5. The risk to watch is shoppers cutting names from their gift lists. A cheaper gift is a smaller sale, but a dropped name is a lost one. Bundles, clear price points and visible gift cards can help keep lists long. A cheaper gift is a smaller sale, but a dropped name is a lost one. Bundles, clear price points and visible gift cards can help keep lists long.

Americans plan to spend $1,243 on the holidays this season, up 9.7% from last year and nearly back to where budgets stood two years ago. After a season of trimming in 2025, Americans are determined to have a happy holiday season this year, replete with delicious food, festive décor and fun holiday experiences, like going to the movies and visiting Santa.

Gift budgets moved very little, rising 3.1%. The lion’s share of the holiday budget increase went to food and decorations, up 16.0%, and to entertainment and dining out, up 17.3%. Gifts now account for just under half of the season's budget, at 48.1% - somewhat less than last year. Households are not buying more presents. They are putting the celebration back.

In 2025, the advice to centers was simple. Keep shoppers longer and they will spend more. Last year's survey supported it cleanly.

This year the relationship holds only partway. Spending climbs from about $771 for shoppers planning a quick half hour, to $1,165 for those planning thirty to sixty minutes, and to $1,515 in the sixty-to-ninety minute range. Then it falls back to $1,217 for shoppers planning to stay longer than ninety minutes.

To be even more specific, the highest spending window is 60 -75 minutes, where average spending reaches $1,594. The returns start flattening right around the seventy-five minute mark. That does not make dwell time irrelevant. The quick in-and-out trip is still worth far less than everything else. 

The number that keeps rising is how many different kinds of store a shopper plans to walk into.

Shoppers planning one or two retail categories budget about $570. Three or four categories, roughly $1,100. Seven or more, just over $2,000. Unlike the dwell curve, this one does not peak and fall back.

Store counts point the same direction. The average shopper plans about five stops. Those planning one or two stores expect to spend $863. Those planning six to nine expect $1,550, and the ten-or-more group $1,656. That last group also stays longest, averaging about seventy-four minutes, which suggests the time is a byproduct of the itinerary rather than the cause of the spending.

The practical difference matters. Stretching a visit takes benches, music and coffee. Widening one takes cross-category offers, clear directories and signage that points people toward stores they had not planned on, and it reaps bigger rewards.

Worth noting too: the consolidation toward short, focused trips that defined last season did not continue. The three-to-five store trip is still the norm and actually grew, to 56.9% from 51.5%. But both ends expanded. Twelve percent now plan ten or more stores, up from 7.8%, while 15.9% will visit just one or two, up from 13.2%.

More than half of shoppers, 55.3%, plan to visit an enclosed mall this season, up from 49.9% in 2025. Every other channel softened. Online delivery is still the largest at 80%, down from 83.9%, and both pickup formats lost ground.

The mall shopper is worth more on every measure in the survey. They budget $1,357 against $1,101 for everyone else. They plan sixty-seven minutes a visit against forty-eight. They roam wider, averaging about six stores, and 15% of them plan ten or more. Two-thirds of households earning over $150,000 plan a mall trip.

The store categories shoppers named shifted in a way that fits. Mass merchandisers remain the most popular destination at 54.6%, but they handed back a good deal of last year's surge from 62.2%. Department stores moved up to 53.4% and now sit close behind. Jewelry was the biggest gainer, rising to 25.3%. Electronics retailers lost the most ground, falling to 32.2% from 39%, consistent with fewer shoppers buying tech as gifts for others.

If retail category breadth is the metric that matters, the mall has a distinct advantage. It is the format where covering five or six categories in a single trip is easiest.

The sharpest behavioral marker of a high-budget shopper this year is whether they buy something to eat or drink while they are out.

Only 13.0% of shoppers will buy nothing at all. What changed from last year is frequency. One in five shoppers, 20.8%, now buy something on every single trip, up from 12.2% last year, and another 21.4% will do it often. The casual middle shrank in turn, from 55.7% to 44.8%.

The spending gap attached to that habit is the widest of any behavior in the survey. Every-visit buyers plan to spend $1,909 on the holidays. Those who never buy anything plan $686. It tracks with time on site too: among shoppers planning visits over ninety minutes, 43.8% buy something every trip, against 3.4% of those in and out in under half an hour.

Drinks lead in refreshment choice at 57.1% - up six points from last year. Snacks follow at 43.1% and fast food at 41.7%. Full-service dining is the one option moving backwards, slipping to 14.8%. Higher earners indulge more across the board, and Gen X fuels up most often, with 70.7% buying a drink.

Deal days still draw nearly everyone, and more than eight in ten shoppers will use them across both channels. But the intensity is coming out of the biggest dates. Black Friday remains the anchor, but slipped on both channels, to 39.8% in-store and 55.1% online. Cyber Monday fell hardest online, down to 46.9% from 55.2%. The all-season option, which was the top in-store answer last year at 46.3%, dropped to 39.8%.

One date gained. Thanksgiving Day rose to 31.8% in-store from 25.8%, and it is the affluent shopper driving it. Nearly half of households over $150,000 will shop in-store on Thanksgiving, against 14.7% of households under $50,000.

Start dates keep drifting later. Just 26% of shoppers will begin before October and only 42.4% by Halloween. The busiest starting points now sit between Halloween and Black Friday weekend, at 19.6% each.

The part worth acting on is that the fall starters carry the biggest budgets. Starting early is not necessarily a sign of money to spend. For many shoppers it means spreading the cost across more months. Higher earners cluster their start in October, while shoppers under $50,000 wait for Black Friday weekend. 

In its first year on the survey, AI is already mainstream. Six in ten shoppers will use it somewhere in their holiday shopping. Gift ideas lead at 40.5%, savings come next at 33.7%, and 19.4% will ask their chatbot where to shop.

That last group is the commercially interesting one, because AI users skew toward exactly the shoppers centers want. They plan sixty-five minutes a visit against forty-nine, and they are close to twice as likely to head to a mall. Adoption tracks income more closely than age, running from roughly 40% among modest earners to around 80% of high earners, and peaking with Millennials at 72.1%.

When someone asks which center carries a particular retailer, or what the hours are on Christmas Eve, the model answers from whatever is published online. Most centers already publish that information. The question is whether it is current and complete enough to come back correctly. Checking what the major platforms say about your property is useful.

Shoppers are clearly feeling the pressure. CPI growth is running at 3.4%, gasoline sits 27.4% above year-ago levels, and 71.6% of shoppers say rising prices will affect their holiday spending, with 38.5% agreeing completely.

Even so, most of the money-saving tactics they report are less common than last year. Looking for more sales fell to 53.7% from 60.6%. Leaning into deal days dipped to 41.4%. Buying cheaper gifts and re-gifting also declined as ways shoppers plan to save money. These are stated intentions gathered well before the season starts, and with gas prices still climbing there is room for behavior to tighten as November approaches.

One response, however, moved the other way, and it is the one to watch. Shopping for fewer people rose to 28.9% from 24.9%. Last season shoppers protected the length of the gift list and traded down on what went on it. This year, more of them are cutting names, which costs more than trading down, because a dropped recipient is a lost sale rather than a smaller one.

The counterstrategy is making it easy to cover more people without spending much more: bundles, clear $25 and $50 price points, and gift cards visible up front. Nearly every gift category slipped a little this year. The goal is to keep the list long rather than raising the ticket.