The United States is a diverse nation of consumers with different wants and needs, backgrounds, opinions, values, and expectations. However, not all voices are always clearly heard, often leading to decision-makers remaining ill-informed.

CivicScience’s robust privacy-centric polling platform, fueled by our media partnerships, enables Americans from all walks of life to be heard and informed. In this series, we’ll take a closer look at Hispanic and Latino American respondents, who represent 19% of the U.S. population.

With the holiday season in full swing, here are key insights about U.S. Hispanic consumers regarding holiday shopping and how they compare to the non-Hispanic U.S. population:

1. Hispanic Americans got an early start on their holiday shopping this year.

While CivicScience data showed a few months ago that early bird shopping lagged behind this year, Hispanic Americans were an exception. When CivicScience started holiday tracking in August, 38% of Hispanic Americans had already started buying their holiday gifts, compared to 25% of their non-Hispanic counterparts. Since then, they’ve consistently outpaced non-Hispanic Americans in gift-buying – up until this month, as 58% of both Hispanic and non-Hispanic Americans have started shopping. This likely results from Thanksgiving weekend sales pushing many consumers to shop for holiday gifts.

Join the Conversation: Do you tend to do your holiday shopping far in advance or at the last minute?

2. Hispanic consumers anticipate spending more money this holiday season.

Hispanic Americans are reporting increased anticipated spending this year. While non-Hispanic Americans are more likely to spend ‘less’ than ‘more,’ the opposite is true for Hispanic Americans. They are almost 10 percentage points more likely to say they’re spending ‘more’ compared to ‘less’ than last year (37% vs. 28%), which also outpaces the percentage of non-Hispanics planning on spending ‘more’ (21%). 

Hispanic Americans are also more likely than non-Hispanic Americans to purchase ‘more’ gifts this year (26% vs. 10%). At the same time, though, Hispanic Americans are more likely to report they plan to purchase ‘about the same’ or ‘less’ – suggesting that they may expect to spend more on the same number of (or fewer) gifts this holiday season.

3. Hispanic Americans have different priorities when choosing where to holiday shop.

When deciding where to shop this holiday season, deals/promotions are most important to both Hispanic and non-Hispanic Americans, followed by free shipping and product availability. However, Hispanic Americans have slightly different preferences compared to non-Hispanic U.S. adults. For instance, they’re more than twice as likely as non-Hispanic Americans to say ‘buy now, pay later options’ and ‘curbside pickup options’ are most important to them. Plus, they’re slightly more likely to value expedited shipping than non-Hispanic Americans. 

Additional Insights

Here are a few other insights from CivicScience’s ongoing holiday tracking:

  • Hispanic Americans are shopping online less than their non-Hispanic counterparts. Non-Hispanic Americans are nearly 10 percentage points more likely than Hispanic Americans to say they’re doing more than 50% of their holiday shopping online this year (47% vs. 38%).
  • Hispanic U.S. adults are more likely to support small/local businesses this holiday season. A third plan to do ‘all/most’ of their holiday shopping at small businesses, compared to about a quarter of non-Hispanic Americans. 
  • Hispanic consumers are more excited about the holidays than non-Hispanic consumers. Thirty-six percent report they’re looking forward to the holidays ‘more’ than usual, compared to 22% of non-Hispanic Americans (who are more likely to say they’re looking forward to the holidays ‘less’ than usual).

Answer our Polls: Do you prefer to do your holiday shopping in person or online?

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