Swiftie Holiday Spending Surges, with More Retailers in on the Action
Over the Holidays, Fans Spent Far More on Taylor Swift Items, Retail Transaction Data Shows
Shoot for the moon, and you could land among the stars — that seemed to be the unspoken, yet pressing, directive that inspired many Swifties’ holiday shopping at the end of 2023.
That’s because Taylor Swift fans (including parents of fans) spent more on anything in the Swift-verse during the 2023 holiday shopping season than they did over the past 5 years.
Here’s a look at:
What Swifties bought
How much they spent
How retailers across the board — including small mom-and-pop shops, discount brands, and major department stores — took notice and tried to capture some of that share of wallet.
Transaction Data Reveals Swiftie Holiday Shopping Trends
From Black Friday 2023 through the end of the year, all things Taylor Swift were hot commodities, with retail sales for small to big-ticket items skyrocketing and surpassing peak sales during Swift’s Eras Tour at the beginning of 2023.
That meant small gifts, clothing, concert tickets, branded gear, and so much more sold at astounding rates due to the following.
Fans filled their wish lists with Taylor Swift merchandise.
Music, candles, and an array of holiday-themed merch were the focal points of fans’ Christmas lists, leaving many loved ones scrambling to find Swift gear.
Fans bought up Swiftie holiday decor.
Taylor Swift merch didn’t just go under the trees in 2023. It also made it onto the trees and into many fans’ holidayscapes, with beads, ornaments, candles, and more.
Swifties got crafty.
Many fans made their own gifts, costumes, and holiday decorations last year, with craft stores, like Michael’s, seeing strong upticks in sales for many items tangential to the Swift-verse.
So, how did all of that break down into dollars and cents — and which retailers made out with the best share of wallet and market share for holiday spending?
Let’s find out with a deeper dive into the transaction data.
A Closer Look at Swifties’ Holiday Shopping & Spending
According to the latest card transaction data, here’s how and where consumers were spending money on Taylor Swift merch at the end of last year.
Taylor Swift online store
Up to $300 million was spent here in 2023, with roughly 30% to 44% of that consumer spending occurring after October, meaning during the last quarter of the year. Transaction data shows that the average spend per Swiftie at this e-commerce site is at least $75.
Music
Remarkably, it wasn’t just digital music sales that spiked over the holiday season. Physical media, meaning Taylor Swift records and CDs, saw record-breaking sales at the end of last year. In particular, when comparing physical media sales in the fourth quarter of 2023 to the entire year, those sales quadrupled in Q4. Perhaps more astounding is the fact that fans bought more than a quarter of a million physical copies of Swift albums on just one day, Black Friday 2023.
Concert tickets
Since Black Friday, sales of Taylor Swift concert tickets have spiked by ~10%. Given funflation and the high cost of concert tickets, this spend is pretty noteworthy, revealing how Swifties are willing to dig a little deeper into their pockets to see their idol live (or give the gift of seeing her perform live).
Eras Movie
Swifties flocked to the box office at the close of 2023 to see the Eras Tour on the big screen.
That resulted in more than $178 million spent on movie tickets over the film’s debut weekend (Oct. 13th), earning a total of about $250 million worldwide by the first week of December alone.
Alphabet beads
Bead sales at crafting retailers shot up by ~50% in November and December 2023, with Swifties crafting up a storm to create holiday-themed friendship bracelets and decorations for their homes, offices, and vehicles.
Small items & tchotchkes
Outside of brand shops and major retailers, several smaller stores also enjoyed sales spikes in Swiftie gear, with some having a hard time keeping totes, hats, water bottles, and other smaller Taylor Swift items in stock. This included brick-and-mortar gift shops, as well as online retailers on sites like Etsy. In fact, looking at the second through fourth quarter sales for Etsy, fans spent nearly $6 million on Swiftie bracelets alone from this one e-commerce website.
What does it all mean for retailers, consumer spending trends, and shopping behaviors in 2024?
Beyond affirming a staying power for all things Taylor Swift, this type of market intelligence starts to uncover precisely:
What customers are willing to buy
When they’re willing to spend more
How retailers can get ahead of consumer demand.
Dialing out a bit more, these market insights can also speak to how fandom in general may be a goldmine for retailers, opening more opportunities for adapting inventory and sales while beating out the competition to achieve better ROIs.
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