Christmas shopping tracker shows 44% of Britons had bought all of their festive presents by 19 December
With just a few days to go until Christmas, around two in five Britons had bought all of the gifts they intend to – but some last-minute shoppers were yet to buy any.
By Monday, December 19, 44% of Britons had bought everything they needed, while 29% had bought most of the gifts they want to buy and 10% had bought at least some; 11% said they didn’t intend to buy any this season.
That means that by that day, 43% of Britons intended to buy presents but had not yet finished their Christmas shopping.
And according to YouGov’s Christmas shopping tracker, that includes 4% of Britons who admitted they had not yet bought any of the presents they needed to.
YouGov’s tracking of the gift-gathering process began on 5 December, when 17% of people said they’d already bought all of their presents.
A week later, 28% had, with progress continuing at a similar pace throughout the month.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, there has been a leap in progress over the past few days, with many people seemingly using the last weekend before Christmas to make a dent in their list – 9 percentage points more of the public said they’d finished their shopping on Monday, December 19 (44%) compared to the Friday before, December 16 (35%).
And the bulk of those who hadn’t yet bought all of their gifts had at least bought “most of them” (29% of all Britons, compared to 14% who had bought fewer).
Men more likely to leave it until last minute
As was the case earlier in the month, men were still considerably less likely than women to have bought everything even at such a late stage (39% to 48%) and also more likely to be last minute shoppers – as of December 19, 6% of men had still not started shopping compared to 2% of women.
And generally, young people were as likely as men to have finished shopping, with 30% of 18 to 24-year-olds having finished their gift buying.
Those aged 65 and over were nearly twice as likely to have done so, with 54% of that age group saying they’d bought all of the gifts they needed by December 19, making them the most prepared generation.
Britons aged between 18 and 24 were the most likely to not bother buying gifts at all, with 17% saying they don’t intend to buy any Christmas presents this year, compared to between 10% and 11% for all other major age groups.
