U.S. households plan to spend an average of $538 on gifts this holiday season, up slightly from $528* last year, The Conference Board reports today. About 8 percent of consumers say they plan to spend more this year on holiday gifts, while approximately 32 percent plan to spend less. The remaining 60 percent plan to spend about the same as last year.

The survey of holiday gift spending intentions, based on a probability-design random sample, is conducted for The Conference Board by Nielsen, a leading global provider of information and analytics around what consumers buy and watch. The survey was conducted for The Conference Board in October as part of the Consumer Confidence Survey®.  

"The recent improvements in consumer confidence – along with robust job growth and declines in gas prices – have consumers approaching the holiday season in better spirits than last year," said Lynn Franco, Director of Economic Indicators at The Conference Board. "However, despite the improved holiday cheer, consumers will once again seek out bargains and incentives when making their purchases."

About one in three holiday shoppers say they expect over half of their purchases to be on sale or discounted. An increasing number of consumers will be clicking and shipping. Nearly seven out of ten expect to purchase at least some of their holiday gifts online, while about one out of four say more than half of their gifts will be purchased online.

* Due to a data processing error, the U.S. figure was incorrectly published as $498 last year, but has been corrected. None of the other published data were affected.