Collabsight, a startup market research and management consulting firm, finished its analysis of its 2018 holiday season prediction survey.
The predictions are overwhelmingly optimistic – results indicate an over 70% chance of U.S. consumers spending as much or more this holiday season, and taking on the same or more debt to support this spending, as compared to 2017.
In addition, the prediction survey results indicate a higher than 50% chance that average American wages will increase by March 2019 (as compared to September 2018), versus a 20% chance those wages will decrease.
Counter-intuitively, heavy social media users displayed much more optimism about U.S. holiday spending levels, U.S. holiday-related consumer debt, and anticipated average U.S. wage increases. This remained stable across a variety of demographic attributes — including political orientation.
“We might be seeing the emergence of a new key demographic attribute – social media usage. This research suggests social media usage might fundamentally affect a person’s beliefs and outlook independently of that person’s other demographic attributes,” said Christopher Mahoney, founder of Collabsight.
“This will be something we will monitor moving forward, as this might impact businesses’ marketing efforts.”
“Businesses, especially online businesses, would be smart to recognize that heavy social media users are fundamentally more optimistic this holiday season.”
A panel of 100 adult U.S. consumers was surveyed in September 2018 and asked to predict 2018 U.S. holiday spending and holiday-related debt, as compared to 2017. Consumers were also asked to predict the change in the average U.S. workers’ wages in March 2019 as compared to September 2018.
A prediction survey differs from a consumer survey in that people are asked for predictions, instead of being asked about their own beliefs. Research suggests prediction surveys are more accurate than traditional consumer surveys, even with fewer respondents.
For a copy of the results and deeper analysis, please email your request to christopher@collabsight.com from your work email address.
