According to an NRF survey, conducted by BIGresearch, shoppers said they had spent less than half of the value of their gift cards (37.3% on average) by the second week in January. Though gift cards were expected to be a common holiday gift, they were even more popular than projected. According to the survey, consumers spent an average of $164.81 on gift cards, up from the $146.20 they expected to spend. As a result, gift card spending during the holidays was $27.8 billion, higher than the $24.8 billion initially estimated by NRF.
