Coveo’s 2024 holiday consumer report, “Gift or Grinch? Unwrapping This Season’s Shopper Spending Plans,” which aimed to uncover consumer sentiment toward the upcoming holiday shopping season, found survey respondents in merry spirits as they plan for the 2024 holidays — willing to make adjustments throughout the year to support gifting budgets.

The company’s research was conducted in July 2024 and surveyed 4,000 U.S. and U.K. adult consumers in partnership with Arlington Research.

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Ongoing financial stress remains a factor for consumers with 59 percent of survey respondents reporting plans to cut everyday budgets to prioritize gifting budgets, which many (76 percent) plan to maintain or increase compared to budgets set in 2023. More than two-thirds of consumers also said they will shop during Black Friday and Cyber Monday with at least one retailer to “take advantage of holiday shopping peaks” with electronics as the fashion top categories and big box stores and department stores as top retailers.

Still, sentiment for the holiday season is relatively positive.

Lisa Grayston, general manager of commerce at Coveo, said that clear standouts of the report are shopper enthusiasm and receptivity to persuasion, “signaling that retailers have a major opportunity to capture a greater share of consumer spending during the upcoming shopping peak. Consumers are going into the holiday shopping season ready to be inspired, which opens doors for retailers to lean on their technological prowess to convince and convert.”

While 45 percent of U.S. shoppers and 39 percent of U.K. shoppers said that they “enjoy the thrill” of finding the perfect gift, almost 20 percent said that they dread the process of gift shopping, citing the time and expense required. To help them this year, a third of online shoppers said they are starting to utilize Gen AI, jumping to 44 percent of Millennials.

Sheerine Reid, senior director of commerce marketing at Coveo, pointed to findings in the report including that 61 percent of shoppers can be inspired to find the perfect gift when provided easy-to-navigate gift categories, such as “top gifts for teens” or “bestselling fragrances,” etc. when shopping online to confirm consumers’ eagerness to be inspired and discover products that match their preferences, making categories with seasonal trends or gifting opportunities especially appealing.