Consumers relying on cash, debit cards rather than credit

HTT Staff -- Home Textiles Today, 11/16/2010 10:52:22 AM

Washington - Consumers' use of credit cards for holiday shopping is at its lowest rate since 2002, according to the National Retail Federation.
Some 43.0% of shoppers plan to use debit cards as their primary form of payment for the holidays, up 20% from 2005, and 25.7% plan to use cash. Just 27.6% plan to use credit cards, the lowest since 2002, when 26.8% resorted to credit.

The number of consumers who have already completed at least half of their shopping edged up to 10.5% this year compared to 9.2% last year. However, 51.1% have not yet begun to shop for the holidays, according to the survey conducted by BigResearch.

Despite much speculation that holiday 2010 would see "needs" triumph over "wants," the most popular gift requests this year are clothing and accessories (58.5%), gift cards (55.1%), videos or video games (52.8%), toys (41.9%), food and candy (28.8%) and jewelry (23.0%).

"After years of practicality, Americans are slowly getting back into the spirit of giving gifts their family and friends may not buy themselves," said Phil Rist, executive vp, strategic initiatives, BIGresearch.