The Harris Poll Holiday Edit Finds 59% of Shoppers Expect Financial Trade-Offs This Season
A survey of 1,906 US adults who expect to buy a holiday gift finds shoppers protecting time with people while they edit the spend, the gift format and the work around the season.
The Harris Poll sent Talk Commerce its new report, The Holiday Edit, on November 12, 2026. The study surveyed 1,906 adults 18 and older in the United States who expect to buy a gift for themselves or someone else, and it was fielded from October 8 to 13, 2026. It covers gifting, gatherings, shopping and interest in AI assistance, and it organizes the findings into four edits for the 2026 holiday season.
The Four Edits
- Protect the Feeling. Keep connection and ritual intact.
- Edit the Spend. Optimize purchases before opting out.
- Pass the Gift Test. Balance thoughtfulness with recipient choice.
- Make the Value Believable. Prove the savings and reduce the work.
What the Report Found
Among the 1,906 holiday shoppers surveyed, 59% expect to make financial trade-offs to pull off the season, and 45% name spending meaningful time with people they care about as one of the top three ingredients of a successful holiday. Shoppers are cutting extras before they cut connection.
Gifts carry weight and add pressure at the same time. 73% say a gift shows how well someone really knows them, and 54% wish the people they exchange gifts with would agree to stop buying gifts for one another.
Deals still pull shoppers in, and trust in them has slipped. 79% say sales and discounts are not as good as they used to be, 72% agree that Black Friday and Cyber Monday are more hype than genuine savings, and 56% still expect to wait for promotions before holiday shopping.
What This Means for Ecommerce Merchants
The report closes each section with a takeaway for brands. Four of them apply to people who build and run online stores.
- Earn a place in the season. The report tells brands to enable connection, care or recovery and not to add another item to the basket, and to help shoppers recreate the feeling without increasing their workload.
- Give shoppers more ways to participate. The report lists smaller formats, entry price points, rewards, bundles and flexible celebration options as the way to keep budget-conscious shoppers in the season.
- Build flexibility into gifting. The report points to gift receipts, exchanges and recipient choice, wish lists that are easy to create, share and access, and personalization that shows thoughtfulness without adding decision pressure.
- Make savings verifiable. The report asks brands to show the final price, avoid constant promotional noise and give shoppers confidence that waiting will not punish them.
On AI assistance, the report advises brands to position AI as a curator and time-saver and not as a decision-maker. It also notes that November remains the biggest conversion window, and it suggests supporting early discovery with wish lists and saved ideas before concentrating conversion activity around November.
About The Harris Poll
The Holiday Edit comes from The Harris Poll. The complete survey methodology, including weighting variables and subgroup sample sizes, is available from Nikki Alfano, Senior Director, Strategy, and Amalba Kola, Strategist, at The Harris Poll. The release came to Talk Commerce from Quintin Simmons at The Harris Poll. The figures above come from the report, which surveyed 1,906 holiday shoppers.
