According to a survey conducted by Rakuten.ca, Canadians are adjusting their gift-giving tactics to save money this holiday season.
The survey found that Canadians plan to spend an average of $570 this holiday, which is down from $600 in 2022. Parents, on the other hand, are expecting to spend an average of $745.
“We’ve been seeing a lot more conscious consumers, especially those looking for everyday savings to balance the high-spend holiday season with the rest of the year,” says Jennifer LaForge, General Manager at Rakuten.ca.
The top five ways Canadians are planning to save money this holiday shopping season, according to the survey, include looking for sales and offers (75 per cent), using loyalty programs to earn cash back (61 per cent), planning activities instead of gifts (35 per cent), shopping earlier to spread out the expense (56 per cent) and not giving to everyone they usually give to (33 per cent).
“Offsetting the financial strain of one of the highest shopping periods of the year is often a priority for many Canadians and we’re seeing increasing numbers of consumers looking at ways they can save, whether it be shopping sales or stacking deals,” LaForge says.
You can sign-up for the Rakuten loyalty program at rakuten.ca. And if you’re looking to get a head start on your holiday shopping, Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days sale starts on October 10.
Rakuten.ca’s Holiday Spending Survey was conducted online by Ignite Lab in August 2023 with a nationally representative sample of 1,000 Canadians. A sample of this size is accurate to within +/-3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. References to previous Holiday research are from surveys conducted in 2022 & 2020 (approx. 6-months into COVID).
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