While
the festive season may still feel a long way away, UK independent
parcel carrier, Yodel, has revealed that nearly a third (29 per cent) of
UK consumers have already started to buy their Christmas presents.
The
survey of 3,165 people, which was carried out between 7 and 9
September, shows that festive treats have been bagged by an estimated
18.6 million Brits already[i]. This is despite the data being collected over 110 days before Christmas when the temperature was on average 20oC[ii] across the country and we were technically still in astronomical summertime.
Those
in the North East (42 per cent) are likely to be the most prepared,
followed by the Welsh (41 per cent) with Londoners falling behind the
pack with just 18 per cent already having bought presents to put under
the tree. Just a fifth (21 per cent) of men have gifts awaiting someone
special, compared to 33 per cent of women, and 13 per cent of men admit
to leaving all shopping to the last minute compared to just 5 per cent
of women. Overall, 18 per cent of people say they will start in
October, 25 per cent in November and 23 per cent won’t get around to it
until December, making September the most popular time to start
searching.
A
huge three quarters (76 per cent) of people say they’ll buy at least
half of their presents online this year. Just 3 per cent say they’ll get
everything in-store. The
figures follow other research from Yodel which showed that on Black
Friday 2014, only 8 per cent of shoppers placed orders online whereas 30
per cent of shoppers plan to take part in online promotions on 27th November this year.
Dick
Stead, executive chairman of Yodel, said: “The advent of online
shopping, speed of delivery and pre-Christmas promotions has changed the
way we shop and we wanted to understand consumers’ shopping trends. The
results are important because they give a clear idea of what to expect
over the coming months as we plan for big spikes in the number of
parcels that we deliver to shoppers, as well as return to retailers.
“It’s
good to see that so many people have already started their shopping,
and we are well prepared to handle the huge numbers of orders that are
still to be bought.”
The
findings come as Yodel continues its preparations for the 2015 peak
period. The carrier has spent the first half of this year optimising its
network to cope with such uplifts in demand, including several new,
strategically placed, ‘super’ service centres, with more planned to open
by the end of the year. It has also made significant investment in IT,
mechanical handling, sorting equipment, training and fleet to improve
efficiency and capacity.
The
research is part of Yodel’s ongoing customer feedback survey, ‘Have
Your Say’, conducted for Yodel by eDigitalResearch. To date the survey
has been taken 1.7 million customers, providing Yodel with instant
feedback on each delivery, and allowing the identification of areas for
improvement and best practice.
[i]29 per cent of the UK population (64.1 million) is 18.589 million
[ii] http://www.accuweather.com/en/gb/london/ec4a-2/september-weather/328328
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