Brits to spend record 1 billion pounds on Christmas day

It looks like slower online spending in the build-up to Christmas this year won’t deter people from spending big on the day itself. This year’s spending on Christmas day in the UK is set to reach one billion pounds for the first time, as more and more people look online to grab the best deals.

The 1 billion pound milestone is largely thanks to a boom of online spending - with approximately 70 percent of transactions predicted to be made using smartphones - combined with people’s growing tendency to hold off buying until the best deals are made available, according to data from the Centre for Retail Research attained by the Telegraph.

The 1 billion pound prediction is considerably larger than last year’s 895 million pound spend, with spending expected to peak at 11am, after gifts - and importantly gift vouchers - have been opened, and again at 5pm, when people are watching TV and unwinding after Christmas dinner.

One in four adults are expected to shop online on Christmas day

The news comes as more and more UK retailers ramp-up their Christmas deals to boost sales amid difficult trading conditions. According to research by PwC, 74 percent of high street stores and 79 percent of online retailers offered some kind of sale or promotion over the Black Friday weekend, compared with 36 percent and 72 percent respectively in the first week of December.

Last weekend was a particularly bad one for UK retail, as Storm Deirdre battered the UK high street, causing a drop in footfall in a weekend that was expected to see a pre-Christmas shopping boom. Retailers are now banking on a ‘Super Saturday’ boost, as the last weekend before Christmas is expected to bring 10.1 million people to the UK’s high streets, and amass a total spend of 1.65 billion pounds, according to the Centre for Retail Research.

Their research also showed that most spending on gifts last Christmas season was spent on clothes and footwear - an average of 53 pounds per person per househol - while food sales made up around 44 percent of spend in December 2017, with the rest going to non-food products.

Photo credit: Freestocks.org, Pexels