Luxury goods and services categories that captured a greater

According to the findings of a new Unity Marketing study, a higher percentage of luxury consumers headed to stores in the third quarter, but they spent less, with luxury consumer spending dropping a modest 1.4 percent.

The results of the latest Luxury Tracking Study, a survey of 1,200-plus affluent consumer households, reveal that luxury consumer spending fell from $31,665 per household in the second quarter of 2010 to $31,225 in the third quarter. The study also shows that ultra-affluents (those in the top 2 percent of U.S. households with incomes over $250,000) cut back even more, reducing their third-quarter spending by 11 percent from the second to third quarter.

Luxury goods and services categories that captured a greater share of affluent shoppers in the third quarter included luxury clothing and apparel, wine and spirits, fine dining, entertainment and travel. According to Unity Marketing, the study data indicates that while luxury marketers for the five categories above were able to attract a greater share of customers in the third quarter as compared to the second, they were not able to convert them into higher-spending customers.

The study shows that the only luxury goods category posting quarter-to-quarter growth was personal electronics, a category that Unity Marketing expects more affluents to turn to in the fourth quarter for holiday gifts.