The holiday shopping season must be here, because the various retail shopping surveys are all coming out.

The first is the NPD’s Retail Survey, found via Mish. It states that 30% of consumers plan to spend less this holiday season, compared to 26% last year. While that’s applauded as only a 4% difference, even a 0% difference implies a possible contraction in spending (the people who spent less last year plan on spending even less this year).

The second comes via the Pudget Sound Business Journal. PriceGrabber.com is claiming that 53% of consumers are saying they will spend less on gifts this year. For comparison, the actual report (pdf) states that 71% made the claim last year.

The third also comes via the Pudget Sound Business Journal. The Consumer Electronics Association claims that Gadget spending will increase (the press release doesn’t offer much, and I’m not spending 200 bucks to find out why consumers plan to spend an average of 222 bucks on gadgets). From the press release:

Underscoring consumers’ love of technology, four out of five adults (80 percent) plan on buying CE products this holiday, the highest results in the 16 years of the survey. Overall gift spending this holiday will increase four percent over last year despite a drop in overall holiday spending. Spending on CE will also increase over last year. Consumers plan to spend an average of $222 on consumer electronics this holiday, a gain of eight percent over last year. Half of consumers (48 percent) also plan to buy a CE product for themselves this holiday.

This is pretty consistent with the NPD survey, which mentioned that 18 to 24 year olds are wanting gadgets more this year.