The overall festive budget is getting bigger as the UK plans a £16.5bn Christmas shopping spree, up by 2.5per cent last year’s Christmas spending, according to research from e-commerce partner Webloyalty. Indeed,
despite retailers kick starting their Christmas advertising campaigns
in November, over a third of the population won’t actually start their
Christmas shop until December, with the average consumer looking to
spend a total of £442 this Christmas.
17.6
per cent of people plan to spend more on Christmas gifts this year,
with the majority of gift-givers spending a total of £282.70 per cent)
than for their wider family (20.1 per cent).
Four
out of 10 consumers plan to use their mobiles to search for festive
purchases. The average person is expected to spend 10 hours shopping for
Christmas food and gifts online, up from 9 hours last year. This
indicates that while more people are shopping online, they are spending
far longer browsing due to the increased choice available.
The
Christmas meal remains an intrinsic part of the festive celebrations.
Over half of consumers (51.4 per cent) will spend more than £150 on
Christmas food and groceries. Despite its recent woes, Tesco still
retains its leading position as 34.5 per cent of consumers plan to use
them for their Christmas shopping. However, nearly a quarter intend to
use Aldi – highlighting the ongoing battle between the major
supermarkets and discount stores.
Guy
Chiswick, Managing Director of Webloyalty Northern Europe comments:
“The Christmas shopping period is incredibly important to the UK
economy. Looking through the research it is positive to see that
Christmas spending is continuing to grow year on year. This is partly
due to low inflation
and heavy price competition within the grocery sector, which has eased
some of the pressure on household finances in recent months and helped
to boost consumer confidence. This increase in spending could make this
Christmas the best for retailers since the recession.”
1. Tesco 34.5 per cent
2. Sainsbury’s 29.3 per cent
3. Asda 25.3 per cent
4. Aldi 24.5 per cent
5. M&S 22.8 per cent
6. Lidl 18.5 per cent
7. Morrisons 15.8 per cent
8. Iceland 13.8 per cent
9. Waitrose 10.1 per cent
10. Co-op 1.9 per cent
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