Average Gift Spending to Rise to $500 This Holiday Season

The types of stores most likely to get a share of this holiday bounty are online retailers (75 percent), discount stores (74 percent) and traditional retailers (49 percent). Local independent retailers received 41 percent of the vote, 36 percent indicated electronic stores, 24 percent selected clothing stores and 9 percent said they plan to shop at luxury department stores.

"The start of the holiday shopping season has been very competitive with retailers vying for shoppers' attention by offering aggressive promotions," said Rojeh Avanesian, vice president of marketing and analytics of PriceGrabber. "We anticipate retailers will continue to offer very strong promotions and incentives in November and December to move products, increase consumer visits and boost sales."

Clothing remains the top holiday gift choices again this year, the gift of choice for 65 percent of consumers. Twenty-eight percent opted for jewelry; 24 percent said food or candy.

Once again, consumers are hedging their bets on getting the best deals in the post-Thanksgiving holiday period. When asked when they believe the best deals will be available for holiday shopping, 33 percent of consumers said after the Thanksgiving holiday (compared to 29 percent in 2011), 28 percent specifically indicated Black Friday (November 23), 23 percent said the month of December and 16 percent said Cyber Monday (November. 26).

"Most consumers only have a certain amount of money to spend this holiday season, and our survey findings indicate that more than half of respondents expect to find great bargains during the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas," added Avanesian.

Since money is tight, 60 percent of those surveyed said they will use credit cards for their holiday spending, 53 percent said they planned to use their savings. Thirteen percent indicated that they planned to use their bonus check at work; 11 percent selected layaway and 9 percent said gift cards.