(12/14/11) -

Frugal Shopping Season Underway in Britain, Canada and the U.S.

The concept of gift cards is very popular in the two North American countries, but not in Britain.

Many people in Britain, Canada and the United States are going to become frugal consumers this holiday season, a new Angus Reid Public Opinion poll has found.

In the online survey of representative national samples, one-in-five Canadians (21%) say they are better off financially than they were last year, compared to 16 per cent of Americans and eight per cent of Britons. Conversely, more than half of respondents in Britain (55%) say they are worse off in 2011, along with two-in-five Americans (39%) and three-in-ten Canadians (28%).

Despite the differences, respondents in the three countries are not in an extravagant mood. Half of Britons (49%) and two-in-five Canadians and Americans (41% and 40% respectively) say they will spend less this year on gifts than they did in 2010. One-in-ten Americans (11%) say they will spend more than they did last year.

Gift Cards

Americans are definitely more open to the concept of gift cards, with three-in-five respondents (62%) saying they actually prefer to receive one than an actual item for the holidays. Conversely, most Britons (58%) and Canadians (53%) say they would rather receive an actual item than a gift card.

While large proportions of respondents in the three countries like the fact that they can pick out the perfect gift for themselves when they receive a gift card, Britons (44%) and Canadians (38%) are more likely to deem gift cards as “an impersonal and lazy way” to give presents. Only one-in-five Americans (25%) agree with this notion.

The gift card phenomenon is decidedly popular in North America, with 67 per cent of both Americans and Canadians saying they received at least one gift card during the holidays or on their last birthday—compared to 40 per cent of Britons. Still, about a third of respondents in the three countries say they possess a gift card that they have not redeemed.

Full Report, Detailed Tables and Methodology (PDF)

CONTACT:

Mario Canseco, Vice President, Angus Reid Public Opinion
+877 730 3570
mario.canseco@angus-reid.com

Methodology: From November 21 to November 25, 2011 Angus Reid Public Opinion conducted an online survey among 1,005 Canadian adults who are Angus Reid Forum panellists, 1,002 American adults who are Springboard America panellists, and 2,006 British adults who are Springboard UK panellists. The margin of error—which measures sampling variability—is +/- 3.1% for Canada and the United States, and 2.2 per cent for Great Britain. The results have been statistically weighted according to the most current education, age, gender and region Census data to ensure samples representative of the entire adult population of Canada, the U.S. and Great Britain. Discrepancies in or between totals are due to rounding.