The holiday season is just around the corner, and many shoppers across the country are well into their holiday planning and gift purchasing mode. PriceGrabber®, a part of Experian, just released additional results of its first winter holiday shopping survey, revealing that 52 percent of consumers plan to spend$500or more on gifts this season. Thirty-six percent said they will spend less than$500, and 12 percent indicated that they do not have a budget. Conducted fromSept. 7-15, 2011, the survey includes responses from 3,070 U.S. online shopping consumers.

Clothing and gift cards rank as most popular holiday gifts

The allure of the holiday sweater appears to have returned in 2011. When asked what items they plan to purchase as holiday gifts this season (respondents could select as many choices as they liked), consumers overwhelmingly chose clothing (66 percent). This was followed by 52 percent of consumers who said they would purchase gift cards; 46 percent opting for books, CDs, DVDs or video games; 43 percent choosing toys; and 31 percent planning to buy hobby-related items. Twenty-five percent plan to purchase shoes; 23 percent food or candy; 21 percent jewelry; 20 percent sporting goods; and 15 percent cosmetics, spa packages or beauty-related gifts.

Tablets top the tech category

Of those respondents who selected electronic products as holiday gifts, the majority indicated they would purchasetablets.iPods or MP3 playerswere the second most popular gift in the tech category, followed by e-book readers, cell phones or smartphones, cameras, TVs andlaptops.

Consumers bet on post-Thanksgivingshopping for the best deals

The day afterThanksgiving(also known as Black Friday) has famously been recognized for years as the official start of the holiday shopping season. Consumers appear to agree that the best deals also start on this date. When asked when they believe the best deals will be available for holiday shopping, 29 percent of consumers said after theThanksgivingholiday, 28 percent specifically indicated Black Friday (Nov. 25), another 28 percent said the month of December, and 15 percent said Cyber Monday (Nov. 28).

"Our survey findings indicate that more than half of respondents expect to find great bargains during the entire four weeks betweenThanksgivingand Christmas," saidGraham Jones, general manager of PriceGrabber. "Shoppers will do well to cover all their bases and combine brick-and-mortar shopping with online comparison sites such as PriceGrabber and also use a mobile shopping application to take advantage of last-minute price drops."