The holiday gift hunt is on — and New Yorkers plan to shop till they drop.
Americans will spend nearly an entire day looking for the perfect present during this holiday season — about 19 hours in total, a new Consumer Reports survey shows.
“I’m a late shopper. And because I start so late, I probably spend more hours in the stores because of the crowds,” Eddie Pyram, 31, an organ transporter from Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, said outside H&M yesterday.
“There’s a rush you get being out in the stores with the crowds, the decorations, the music.”
But even with the increased time in stores — up five hours from last season — shoppers are still expected to spend less. Just 15 percent of those polled said they would drop more dough this year than they did last year.
Not surprisingly, electronics and gadgets figure to be big sellers this year.
Seventeen percent plan to buy an Apple iPad — and one in 10 want to buy an Apple iPhone 4S. For 14 percent, the Leapfrog LeapPad is on the shopping list.
Other must-have items include the Sesame Street Let’s Rock! Elmo, the Amazon Kindle Fire, a 3D television set, Fisher-Price’s Sing-A-Ma-Jigs, and an Internet-ready television, the poll showed.
The only non-electronic item on the “hot” list was the Barbie Pink 3-Story Dream Townhouse.
Nearly all shoppers (94 percent) will make at least some of their purchases in brick-and-mortar stores — with about a third of them bravely planning to squeeze into stores on Black Friday, the survey showed.
Brooklyn grad student Leslie Fernandes, 34, plans to go against the trend.
“My plan is to spend zero hours in the stores,” she said yesterday. “I’m going to take advantage of the online deals. The stores — it’s just too much. I get e-mailed stuff I don’t pay attention to — deals on this, half on that. This time of year is when to pay attention!”