About 90% of the married respondents to a recent survey of the affluent plan to give a December holiday gift to their spouse, and the most frequent sources of the gifts will be traditional department stores (62%) and specialty retail stores (57%). Gift cards or money equivalents will be given by about 20% of the spouses.

About one in two said they have children under 18 to whom they will give gifts. Specialty retail stores (58%) will be the most frequent source of the gifts. Traditional department stores (55%) will be a close second, and the internet and discount department stores were essentially tied (at almost 50%). Gift cards or money equivalents will be given, about equally, by about 31% of the survey respondents.

Almost six in ten said they have children 18 and over to whom they will give gifts. Traditional department stores (57%), specialty retail stores (43%), and discount department stores (35%) will be the most frequent sources of the gifts. Gift cards or money equivalents will be given, mostly as cash or checks, by about 69% of the survey respondents.

About 80% of the respondents plan to give gifts to other relatives, and 62% will give gifts to friends. For both types of recipients, traditional department stores and specialty retail stores were named the first and second most frequent sources of gifts. For relatives, the internet was named third (39%) and for friends discount department stores were named third (37%). For both types of recipients, gift cards or certificates will be given to about by about 25% of the survey respondents.

For each type of recipient, catalogues were named as a source of gifts by about one in four of the respondents.

These results were obtained from the recently completed Fall 2005