It’s not even Christmas yet and already consumers in the United States have shelled out over $22 billion (yes, billion) dollars on the holiday season. That number, by the way, was calculated on December 10th, 2010, so you can expect that the tally has already exponentially jumped. This data is from the marketing accounting firm comScore and represents a 12% increase over the same time last year. What recession? What new understanding of the need for a green and clean world with less waste?
And, of course, bear in mind that the above number represents only online holiday purchases. You will not want to attempt to estimate the number that results when you include the “retail rush” of Black Friday and all of the other weeks of the month.
It’s certainly discouraging on many levels! We at Postconsumers definitely believe that purchasing and holiday behaviors are a personal choice and that learning to find the satisfaction of enough means doing so in a way that you’re comfortable with, be that with a little or a lot. However, there is just some basic math going on here. An increase in holiday spending year-over-year is definitely a macro trend in the wrong direction for a sustainable economy and no matter how open-minded we are about personal shopping decisions there’s just no other way to spin that!
Apparently not enough people read our handy guide to spending less and celebrating more this holiday season, A Very Postconsumer Holiday. It’s not too late to read it and then to pass it along to somebody! If we slow the rate of consumerism down right now we may still be able to avoid ending with the year-over-year numbers being so far ahead of last year! It’s time to rally!
Why do you think it is that, despite so much talk of recession and a cleaner, greener world, holiday spending is so much on the rise from last year? Like us on Facebook and let’s discuss.
