National Retail Federation's 2013 Mother's Day spending survey, conducted by BIGinsight, found the average person will spend $168.94 on Mother's Day gifts this year, up 11% from last year's $152.52. Total spending is expected to reach $20.7 billion.

"Budgetary constraints will keep many families on the lookout for the perfect group gift, like a new tablet or smartphone, or even that cashmere sweater they know mom has had her eye on," said BIGinsight Consumer Insights Director Pam Goodfellow.

The survey found 14.1% of shoppers—the highest in its history—will spend more than $2.3 billion for Mother's Day (Sunday, May 12) on electronics, up from $1.6 billion last year.

Additionally, more than one-third (34.4%) of gift givers will buy jewelry, spending a total of $4.2 billion—up from $3.7 billion last year—on necklaces, bracelets and more.

Others will spending $3.5 billion at restaurants, $2.3 billion on flowers, $2 billion on gift cards, $1.7 billion on clothing or clothing accessories and $1.5 billion on some type of personal service such as a spa day.

The survey found 34.4% will head to department stores, while specialty stores such as jewelers, florists and electronics stores will see the most traffic (36.6%). Others will shop at a discount store (29.1%), online (28.5%, the highest in the survey's 10-year history) or specialty clothing store (8.9%).

Of those Americans celebrating the holiday this year, most will focus on buying a gift for their mother or stepmother (65.2%) or wife (23.6%). Others will treat their daughter (10.5%), grandmother (8.5%) or sister (8.2%) to something nice.

A CreditDonkey survey of more than 800 Americans found that respondents plan to spend an average of $61.56 this year on the holiday.

The survey also revealed that sons plan to spend more on Mother's Day, while daughters expect to spend less than they did last year. Nearly 1 in 4 son respondents said they plan to increase their Mother's Day budget, while the same number of daughter respondents said they would spend less.

Despite these differences in buying habits and expectations, the majority in both categories show they will likely spend the same amount as they did in 2012.

Of note was the response regarding greeting cards, often a staple for Mother's Day. More daughters said they want to give a greeting card than sons (31% of daughters compared to 28% of sons). Of 100 moms surveyed, 32% wanted to receive a greeting card.

Among the gifts moms said they wanted to receive were something homemade (36%), dinner (35%), gift cards (25%) and flowers (23%). Of particular interest to Christian retail stores were the following categories: jewelry (11%); books (10%); music (6%); and movies (6%).

CreditDonkey.com surveyed 1,062 Americans, age 18 and up April 1-10, and 81% of them plan to celebrate Mother's Day.

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