The general spending growth in the holiday season looks set to 'look the same as last year with growth, but moderate growth', with the biggest beneficiaries being retailers of 'traditional' gifts, such as fragrances, clothing, toys and books.
These gift items are labeled with a 'tried and tested' image, and the NPD survey respondents suggest that they intend to spend more on these items in 2006.
NPD Group has suggested that the 27 per cent of respondents who took the survey said they intended to buy fragrance during the holiday period this year, as opposed to 25 per cent of consumers from 2005.
These figures signal a rise in the amount of money spent on gifts during the holiday period, with an estimated amount of $728 spent this year, in relation to $681 in 2005, mirroring a similar increase that was apparent in the 2004/2005 period.
The holiday period sees the highest rate of fragrance sales throughout the year, with The National Retail Federation predicting a 5 per cent increase in sales to $457.4 billion during November and December. This figure is down on last year's increase, which had increased 6.1 per cent from the previous year to $435.6 billion.
Worldwide fragrance sales have remained strong this year as evinced by cosmetics giant, L'Oreal, which also put an increase of 8.7 per cent in sales and a 21.8 per cent jump in net profits for the first six months of the year, partly down to dynamic fragrance sales in its luxury division.
Fragrances such as ArmanicCode Women By Georgio Armani are now reaching the top ten best selling perfumes in Europe. Likewise Hynose, Polo Black and Amor Pour Homme were all ear-marked as having strong growth.
Discount and mass merchant retail outlets are expected to receive the largest amount of business from consumers. The NPD Group, a provider of consumer and retail information for a wide range of industries, say that retail chains and online shopping 'round out the top three places people plan to shop this year'.