Some Brits Xmas shop year-round, but prematurely festive stores can grate - survey

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Oct 13, 2017

Christmas shopping begins up to four months early for many Britons with around 20% of consumers starting it by September and a small-but-significant 5% actually shopping all year round with Christmas in mind.

That’s according to new research from jewellery retail giant Goldsmiths, which also said that while plenty of people start early, a sizeable 28% wait until December to do any gift-buying.

But only 11% describe their buying style as “last minute”, whereas 31% say they like to shop in December generally because it gets them in the mood for Christmas.

This Christmas the average Briton is expected to spend £289.32 on gifts, but 25% plan to spend over £500 in total.

And while survey respondents say December remains the key shopping month, that goes against evidence of recent years that shows UK shoppers shifting their spend into November to take advantage of Black Friday deals. This year, only 13% of people admit to planning to make use of Black Friday or similar days to get most of their Christmas gifts, although recent years suggest more will actually shop at this time.

Overall, women were found to be more organised than men, which is perhaps no surprise. Women’s average start date to begin gift-shopping was found to be a month earlier than their male counterparts – the second half of October for women, compared to the second half of November for men.

While consumers vary in their approach to starting their Christmas shopping, stores tend to start early trying to get them into the mood for upping their discretionary spend with Christmas in mind. And a big part of that is festive music. 

Many Britons are perfectly happy to keep the Christmas feeling for several months and 2% are even happy to hear Christmas music playing in-store as early as August. That should offer some encouragement to department stores such as Harrods and Selfridges that are famous ( or notorious) for launching their Christmas stores very early in order to target foreign shoppers as well as locals.

However, the average Briton believes that December is the best time to hear Christmas songs and see festive decorations, which means stores need to tread carefully in order not to alienate shoppers in October and November.

In fact, male shoppers are more against Christmas music and decorations (28%) until mid-way through December, and the older shoppers get, the less likely they are to tolerate premature festiveness.