American consumers are optimistic heading into 2024

The new year really brings out the optimism in people, huh?

New consumer survey data from Attest shows a 7% bump in the number of Americans who feel “very positive” about 2024: That figure is 33% compared to 26% who said the same heading into 2023.

• Overall, 71% of respondents are optimistic about the upcoming year, compared to 64% who felt the same way coming into 2023.
• That being said, the percentage of respondents who say their spending will be “cautious” (53%) has dropped by 5.6% compared to last year, while almost a quarter (24%) say they will spend “freely” in the new year.

But e-commerce retailers shouldn’t fret: Non-food shoppers who say they will spend “mostly” or “always” online jumped 5.5% to 39%, compared to 27% of those who said they are going to prefer going into the store. The rest plan on splitting it between the two.

According to this research, there is going to be a major caveat: marketplaces. Attest found an 11.1% percentage point slide in customers who say they’ll start their shopping journeys on marketplaces (now 40%), compared to 29% who will simply go to a search engine, which is up 4.9% year over year.

And to keep it light, more than half (56%) of consumers want their advertisements to be funny, which is a nearly 5% increase from last year. The number of shoppers who want messaging to be “reassuring” (35%) is down four percentage points from last year.