This year we conducted a survey of 7,003 people in regards to their Christmas Shopping plans!
This year, we conducted the Christmas Shopping Survey 2023, gathering responses from 7,003 individuals about their holiday shopping plans. The survey explored various aspects, including when people start and finish their shopping, the percentage of online shopping they expect to do, their budget allocations for different recipients, and their preferences for both desired and undesired gifts.
To summarise the key findings:
In 2023, a significant change is evident, with 14% of individuals choosing not to make online gift purchases—the highest amount observed since 2017. Among those opting for online shopping, a substantial 67% of their Christmas shopping is due to be done this year! This represents the highest percentage of online shopping recorded since the inception of our survey in 2015. Remarkably, nearly 10% of survey respondents will be completing all of their Christmas shopping online this year, marking the highest proportion of 100% online shoppers we have observed since 2015.
Spending Trends
71% of people will start their Christmas shopping before December and 19% of customers will not finish their Christmas shopping until Christmas Eve!
The average spend in total for Christmas gifts continues to rise each year as this year the highest it has ever been since 2015, when the survey was first started. In 2015 the average spend overall was €749, now the average spend is €962! There has been a constant increase in the total spend year on year.
The question of who people will be buying gifts for has had some shifts from 2022. In 2022 24% of people were buying gifts for colleagues whereas in 2023 there has been a huge jumper to 41% will be buying gifts for their colleagues, yet the average spend has decreased to €46, down from €119 in 2022.
According to our survey, there are only a few spending increases which include spending more on other family members, other kids, and spending on friends which are all small increases from 2022. Overall there has been a huge decrease in the amount of spending the survey respondents plan on doing per gift recipient, for example the average spend on respondent’s grandparents is €69 in 2023, down from €106 in 2022. The average spend on parents is down 20% in 2023.
Best and Worst Gifts
Lastly the most popular gift for the 6th year in a row that people would like to receive is a Voucher. A holiday and spa gift still remain in the top 3 most popular gifts. For almost every year we have been running this survey socks continues to reign as the worst gift ever received, maybe go for a voucher over socks this year for a safe bet!
