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Dad's Day Spending Drops; More Buy Gifts

American adults are expected to shell out an average of $90.89 for Father’s Day gifts this year, down 3.8% from $94.54 in 2008, according to the NRF’s 2009 Father’s Day Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, conducted by BIGresearch. The study also predicts that that total dad’s-day spending will reach $9.4 billion, down 2% from $9.6 billion in 2008.

Despite a lower average dollar amount of predicted spend, the number of respondents reporting they will buy a gift for a father or stepfather is up to 51.1%, from 48.2% in 2008. Likewise, the number of consumers reporting they will buy gifts for husbands (28.6%), sons (7.6%), grandfathers (4.7%) and brothers (5.1%) is also up, while gift-buying intentions for friends and godfathers has declined slightly since last year.

Events and Clothing Still Top the List

According to the survey, consumers will spend the most money on meals and events, clothing items and gift cards/certificates:

• Consumers will spend $1.9 billion on a special outing such as a dinner or even a sporting event with dad.
• Clothing still ranks high, with gift-givers expecting to spend $1.3 billion on new socks, slacks and ties.
• Others will treat dad to a gift card ($1.2 billion), electronics ($1.0 billion), books or CDs ($548 million), home-improvement items ($522 million) and sporting goods ($502 million).

Discount & Department Stores Vie for Sales

Discount stores and department stores will be going head to head this Father’s Day, with 33.9% of Americans planning to shop at discounters and 33.7% expecting to shop at department stores, NRF said.  Others will head to specialty stores like electronics and home-improvement stores (26.8%), online (17.9%), at specialty clothing stores (6.1%) or catalogs (2.8%).

Despite predictions of lower spending, Retailer Daily reports that retailers are still actively pursuing Father’s Day shoppers with promotions in a pattern similar to what was seen in the run-up to Mother’s Day last month.

Dads Take Back Seat to Mom

Though Mother’s Day spending was down this year as well, the amount spent on moms still exceeds the amount spent on Dads, and has done so since 2003.  The average amount of money spent on Mother’s Day this year was  $123.89, according to a previous NRF survey.

About the survey: The annual NRF 2009 Father’s Day Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey of 8,447 US consumers was conducted for NRF by BIGresearch from May 5-12, 2009.