---

It’s Christmas time! Whether you’re looking forward to celebrating, or just a bit of time off, this festive time of year comes with some major shopping trends and traditions, and we ran some consumer research to find out how the nation is behaving this year.*

*Not how well they’re behaving, that’s Santa’s job.

Christmas Shopping Behaviour – Presents

Running our research in mid-November, we found that 50% of our nationally representative sample had already started their Christmas shopping for presents, which is more than the 44% the same time last year.

However, on a closer look at the data, it seems in 2020 there were a larger number of completed shopping lists! 14% had already completed their Christmas gift shopping whereas this year, by the same time, only 9% had.

But what’s the most popular method of purchase?

Around 55% said online (via delivery / click-and-collect), but a significant 41% chose in-store methods – whether that’s browsing local shops, the Highstreet, or supermarkets. Compared to last year, where 33% chose in-store methods, it seems like more people are willing to step outside and enjoy the “old-fashioned” way of purchasing gifts this Christmas.

What about Christmas food shopping?

We found out that there are around 26% shopping online for Christmas food this year (via delivery / click-and-collect), compared to the larger figure of 30% last year.

And is the nation willing to try different food this year?

49% of our representative sample are willing to try a plant-based dinner – quite a large percentage considering how attached we are as a nation to a traditional Christmas dinner!

What about a festive pizza for Christmas? Not so much – an innovative idea, but when the Vypr Community were asked if they’d consider a festive Christmas Dinner pizza, around 40% of consumers did not enjoy the idea, one even going as far as to say:

Enough said. But 60% were still up for the idea or neutral on it, so there is still hope for the festive pizzas out there (but always a good idea to Vypr it to confirm demand before launching to the nation!).

All in all, many consumers are looking forward to the Christmas season, whether they celebrate or not.

Our community are looking forward to much more than just shopping and food this Christmas – many let us know that they’re hoping to spend some much-awaited time with family members.

Whatever you’re doing this Christmas, we wish you a very Happy Holiday season. 

Want to know what makes a great Christmas? Click here to watch The Vypr Christmas Video where you can see how our community voted on their favourite drinks, presents, and of course, Christmas ads.

Steers (what we call the research questions run on our platform) were run during Nov-Dec 2020 and 2021, with Vypr’s robust consumer community. Learn more about our data’s scientific foundation here.