Click here for Christmas
According to our latest research, almost half of festive shoppers do most or all of their Christmas shopping online, with UK festive online shopping spend up 11% year on year.
Three quarters of online shoppers start making Christmas purchases in November. But 5% leave it to the week before 25 December.
Online shoppers’ most popular purchases are clothes (56%), books (44%), toys (44%), toiletries/make-up (39%) and CDs/DVDs/records/computer games (36%). The average gift costs £46, up from £42 the previous year, and the average number of gifts purchased online at Christmas is seven.
Our research also revealed that men spend on average £348, compared to women’s spend of £300. 18-24-year-olds are more likely to have bought gifts for themselves than any other age group. A third (33%) of festive online shoppers bought more gifts online in 2018 than 2017.
The main reasons people choose to shop online at Christmas are convenience-related: being able to shop from the comfort of their home, the ability to shop any time of the day and the ease of comparing prices.
Around one in 10 online shoppers returned items last Christmas, with women twice as likely to make Christmas returns than men.
Royal Mail is here to help consumers and businesses prepare for their Christmas deliveries wherever they are in the UK. Our latest report is available for download at: www.royalmail.com/deliverymatters.
