98M Consumers Plan to Finance Holiday Gifts This Year

Gift giving is on everyone’s mind, and financing what they’ll spend on holiday gifts is, too.

The holidays are fully here, and Christmas is but two days away. As 2022 has been marked by rampant inflation and macro pressures, spending patterns are looking a bit different this year.

As reported in “Deal Or No Deal: The 2022 Holiday Shopping Report,” the data gleaned from  2,439 U.S. consumers finds that half are cutting back on holiday spending because they don’t have the money. As many as 56 million consumers are opting out of holiday shopping altogether.

But of those consumers who did, and do, open their wallets this year, roughly half of holiday shoppers this year planned to pay for their purchases using credit cards, loans, or buy now, pay later (BNPL) options. Extrapolate the data a bit, and that means about 98 million U.S. consumers are planning to pay for at least one holiday purchase using at least one of those options. As many as 23% of holiday shoppers — or 48 million consumers — intend to use these methods to finance more than half of their holiday purchases.

The desire to finance those payment skews a bit younger, the data show — and it is the younger generations who want to finance a significant percentage of their holiday spending. We found that demand for financing options is highest among millennials and bridge millennials, 31% of whom plan to finance more than half of their holiday purchases this year. Generation Z is not far behind — 30% of that group plan to finance at least half of this year’s holiday purchases.

Clearly, the desire to make merry, to give (perhaps rather than receive) is top of mind for many consumers.  The issue of how to pay for it all has become at least a little more palpable with some flexibility thrown into the mix.