Poll: men more likely to shop late

WASHINGTON, Dec. 25 (UPI) -- A new poll suggests men are more likely than women in the United States to put off their holiday shopping until the last minute.

The BigResearch survey of 8,135 consumers, conducted Dec. 4-11, found 19 percent of men had not even started holiday shopping, while 14 percent of women said the same.

Only 11 percent of men questioned in the survey claimed to have finished all of their shopping.

"It's a fine art form we've perfected over the years," Scott Krugman, a spokesman for the National Retail Federation told The Washington Post. "It's never been easier to be a procrastinator."

The survey's margin of error was 1 percentage point.

Meanwhile, the International Council of Shopping Centers said consumers as a whole waited until later than previous years to finish their gift shopping.

The council said U.S. consumers had completed only 18 percent of their holiday shopping as of early last week. By comparison, 31 percent of shopping had been completed at the same time in 2004.