Scary news when you work in a mall....

Shoppers Ready for Last-Minute Assault on MallsA new survey reports that there are plenty of shoppers waiting until the very last minute to go Christmas shopping. A Deloitte and Touche survey showed:

65 % Still have gifts to buy
14 % Haven’t started
47 % Spent most of their holiday budgets on sale items
20 % Haven't purchased anything at full price
68 % Have purchased at least one unplanned gift
42 % Have purchased three or more unplanned gifts
53 % Haven’t purchased gift cards yet, implying an impending run on gift cards
37 % Plan to spend $100 or more on gifts between now and Christmas
35 %Plan to buy some gifts between Dec. 26 and Dec. 31
34% Said the stores they visited didn't have enough sales help
30 % Abandoned a purchase because of long checkout lines
42 % Left a store without buying because the item was out of stock
63 % Visited a store’s Web site before dropping in on the store

SOURCE: Deloitte & Touche USA. Survey of 564 U.S. consumers conducted online Dec. 18. Margin of error is plus or minus 4 points. The survey said that shopping today, tomorrow and Saturday will be crowded and that store inventories will be low