Ssshhhhhhh, I got top-secret, confidential access to Mom’s, er I mean, Santa Claus’ Master List for the holiday season! If you’re super stealthy, you can use it to pitch your clients all the right reasons to advertise with you. But only if you’ve been naughty — woops, there I go again — NICE this year.

According to the Marketing to Moms Coalition’s “Moms Holiday Spending Trends 2009 Report,” the word in the aisles is spending will remain the same as last year!  Wait, it gets better for your retail clients — moms with older children actually plan to spend more this year! The results are based on answers from 1,225 moms with children younger than 18 living at home. Here’s how it breaks down:

Overall, moms will spend $672 this year, consistent with last year’s spending levels with the popular gifts for teens being:

1. Music/Music Electronics 28%
2. Clothing 27%
3. Gift Cards 23%
4. Beauty Products/Video Games 21%
5. Movies 19%

You’ll find moms swiping their plastic here:

1. Mass merchandisers/supercenters 85%
2. Department stores (up 10% to 47%)
3. Electronics stores (up 13% to 41%)

Moms with higher household incomes ($75,000+) plan to shop at more places, including department, specialty clothing, club and sporting goods stores, while those with lower incomes skew to dollar stores. Compared to other ethnic groups, English-speaking Hispanic moms are more likely to shop at electronics stores, while African-American moms are more likely to hit dollar and shoe stores.

The Coalition also says, “Consistent with last year, most moms will do a lot of their shopping online this year, as 16% of moms plan to do 50% or more of their holiday shopping online. Moms with higher education and higher household incomes consistently are planning to do more of their shopping online than other moms.” The top 3 items moms plan to buy online for the 2009 holidays are:

1. Toys 41%
2. Clothing/clothing accessories 38%
3. Music/movies 34%

Check out the other results of this survey at www.marketingtomomscoalition.org.

[Source: Bailey, Maria. "Capturing Mom's Holiday Shopping Dollars." Engage: Moms. MediaPost Blogs. Nov. 4, 2009.]