The Business of Holiday and Winter Shopping

Seasons Greetings! Wondering where you can find data on holiday spending and consumer trends? The Boston Public Library offers a number of online resources to help you get the information you need.

Industry Data

A First Research Report from Mergent Intellect is a good place to find industry overview for publishers, toys, and candy manufacturing.  With almost 500 profiles, First Research can quickly get you up to speed on any given industry.

• Greeting Card Publishers: about 100 establishments with combined annual revenue of about $3.3 billion
• Toy and Hobby Stores: 8,100 stores with combined annual revenue of about $19 billion
• Candy Manufacturing: 1,800 establishments with combined annual revenue of about $26 billion

Professional Associations

To locate business associations that cover a given subject area, such as retailing, select our Gale Directory Library, and search the Encyclopedia of Associations: National Organizations.

• Christmas Trees: the National Christmas Tree Association says there are between 25-30 million real Christmas trees sold in the U.S. every year
• Gift Trends: the National Retail Federation finds that consumers will be spending about $1,000 on average on gifts and other items for the holiday season
• Chocolate: theNational Confectioners Associationsays that more than 90% of Americans will share or gift chocolate and candy this holiday season

Government Statistics

• Search the Statistical Abstract of the United States to learn that the value of Cut Christmas Trees for 2014 was $367 million
• Check Census Bureau Newsroom, Facts for Features section: estimated retail sales by the nation’s department stores (including leased departments) in December 2016 was 22.7 billion

Giving

Finally, did you know the BPL offers access to the Foundation Center at our Central Library location? This resource offers data on more than 140,000 grantmakers and 11 million + in grants. Here, you can find out which organizations are funding gift distribution, services for the homeless, and many other fields of interest.