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Consumers this year are making more holiday purchases with cash and debit cards than they did last year, suggests National Retail Federation research released this week. Among 8,860 consumers BIGresearch LLC surveyed for the federation between Dec. 2 and 9, 23.3% said they are using cash most often when buying gifts compared with 22.7% who said so last year. Debit card use also is up, with 38.8% saying they are using the cards most often compared with 36.5% last year. Both check and credit card use is down this holiday season. Only 4.1% of respondents said they are using checks most often compared with 5.3% last year, and 33.8% said they are using credit cards most often compared with 35.5% last year. BIGresearch also asked which credit cards consumers are using for making purchases. Among respondents, 37.6% cited Visa cards compared with 36.7% last year. The percentage of respondents using MasterCards fell to 23.5% from 24.7%. Only 8.7% cited Discover cards, down from 9.8% last year. The percentage of respondents using American Express cards rose slightly, to 9.4% from 8.4%. The percentage of respondents using store cards declined, to 8.6% from 9.6%. Consumers were allowed to choose more than one answer. Federation officials did not return calls for comment by deadline.
