Stay ahead of the curve and future-proof your business with Mintel’s UK Christmas Gifting Market Report 2024. Our full report is packed with consumer-led market intelligence, the latest trends in Christmas gift buying and consumer behaviours affecting your business. Get a 360° view of the UK Christmas gift market including market size, share and forecasted growth to help you align your business strategy with the needs of your audience.
Below, we’ve handpicked the key insights analysed in the full report and summarised the core topics.
Topics Analysed in this Report
- The impact of the cost-of-living crisis on festive retail demand and gift buying for Christmas.
- Detailed analysis of the shape of retail demand in the final months of 2024.
- Who consumers bought gifts for, how these were purchased and when gift shopping began in 2023.
- How much on average consumers spend on gifts and key decision factors when evaluating which retailers to buy gifts from.
- Attitudes to gift reduction schemes, the importance of the high street at Christmas and the use of AI in gift searches.
UK Christmas Gifting Market Overview
The impact of the cost-of-living crisis cast a shadow across the festive 2023 period. This ‘gift reduction’ trend is a natural threat to the UK Christmas gift market. While value is the primary driver at present, concerns around over-consumption and the impact on the environment from throwaway gifting are also playing into this. For brands and retailers, it is important to challenge this directly.
- Christmas retail market size: Mintel forecasts that the retail sales by volume fell by 2.8% in December.
UK Christmas Gift Market Trends, Challenges and Opportunities
Balancing the tone of communication
Encouraging overspending among middle and higher-income will be an opportunity for retailers in 2024, particularly if tapped into through indulgent or guilty pleasure communications.
However, that same messaging for lower-income households will likely add to pressure to keep pace with a recovering market and may push them toward overspending or overuse of buy-now-pay-later schemes, Â which leaves lasting damage to finances, and potentially damaging brand/customer relationships.
- Trends in Christmas gift buying: 31% of consumers purchased high-ticket gifts such as jewellery or watches in 2023.
Offer value other than the price
Price will always be important for consumers when choosing where to buy gifts. However, with a little more discretionary spend at play, consumers will more closely judge a broader range of factors. Notably those already in a more positive financial position considered unique products and offers extended returns as an extremely important factor.
- Trends in Christmas gift buying: 27% of consumers consider extended returns as an important factor when selecting which retailers to buy from.
Purchase our UK Christmas Gift Buying Market Report to receive a forecasts, consumer behaviour analysis, and recommendations for market opportunities. Readers of this report may also be interested in our UK Mother’s Day Market Report 2023, or our range of Seasonal Holidays Market Research.
Brands Featured in the Full Report
Aldi, John Lewis, Co-op, Etsy, Amazon, Tesco, M&S, Sainsbury’s, Currys, Boots, Asda.
Expert Insights from a Retail Analyst
This report, written by Nick Carroll, a leading research analyst, delivers in-depth commentary and analysis to highlight Christmas gifting market trends and add expert context to the numbers.
Festive 2023 saw consumers again cut back, with gift spending particularly constrained. A sustained uptick in confidence should provide more opportunities in 2024.
Nick Carroll
Category Director – Retail Insight
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- Key issues covered in this Report
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Executive Summary
- Opportunities for Christmas 2024
- Market dynamics and outlook
- Graph 1: the financial wellbeing index, 2016-23
- Graph 2: all retail sales, excluding fuel, non-seasonally adjusted, December 2019-23
- Graph 3: all retail sales, excluding fuel, non-seasonally adjusted, November and December combined, 2019-23
- Graph 4: all online sales, value non-seasonally adjusted, year-on-year performance, 2023
- Graph 5: share of online sales, by type of retail operation, 2020-23
- What consumers want and why
- Graph 6: who gifts were given to at Christmas, 2023
- Graph 7: how christmas gifts were purchased, 2023
- Graph 8: most popular types of gifts purchased for Christmas, 2022-23
- Graph 9: average spending on gifts, 2019-23
- Graph 10: when christmas gift buying began, 2021-23
- Graph 11: factors considered important when selecting which retailer to buy gifts from, 2023
- Graph 12: attitudes to christmas gift shopping, 2023
- Retailer activity
- Graph 13: total recorded above-the-line, online display and direct mail spending by retailers on advertising during Q4, 2019-23
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Market Dynamics
- Macro-economic factors
- Graph 14: CPI inflation rate, 2021-23
- Graph 15: inflation, overall index (CPI) and core categories, 2023
- Graph 16: real wages growth, annual % change in wage growth vs inflation, 2016-23
- Graph 17: the financial wellbeing index, 2016-23
- Graph 18: the financial confidence index, 2016-23
- Graph 19: ‘I feel pretty confident that I’ll be OK’ in the coming year, 2019-23
- Graph 20: attitudes towards Christmas celebrations, 2023
- Retail sales performance
- Graph 21: all retail sales, excluding fuel, non-seasonally adjusted, December 2019-23
- Graph 22: all retail sales, excluding fuel, non-seasonally adjusted, 2023
- Graph 23: retail sales (excl fuel) in October-December as a percentage of total retail sales in the final quarter, 2019-23
- Graph 24: all retail sales, excluding fuel, non-seasonally adjusted, November and December combined, 2019-23
- Graph 25: key category performance in December and November and December combined, non-seasonally adjusted value and volume, 2023
- Retailer performance
- Channel performance: in-store and online
- Graph 26: all online sales, value non-seasonally adjusted, year-on-year performance, 2023
- Graph 27: online share of all retail sales, Q4 2019-23
- Graph 28: share of online sales, by type of retail operation, 2020-23
- Graph 29: all online store-based grocery retail sales, value non-seasonally adjusted, year-on-year performance and share of total sales, 2022-23
- Graph 30: predominately non-food retail category performance, non-seasonally adjusted year-on-year % change, 2023
- Graph 31: estimated share of total non-food sales, store versus online and other non-store, 2022-23
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What Consumers Want and Why
- Who gifts were given to
- Graph 32: repertoire of Christmas gift recipients, by household income, 2023
- Graph 33: ‘I agreed with some family/friends that as we wouldn’t give each other gifts”, by household income, 2023
- Graph 34: ‘I participated in a ‘Secret Santa’ exchange with friends/family, by household income, 2023
- How gifts were purchased
- Graph 35: how christmas gifts were purchased, 2020-2023
- Graph 36: channels used to purchase Christmas gifts, by age, 2023
- Graph 37: ‘I bought more gifts from smaller/independent businesses compared to last year’, by household income, 2023
- Gifts given in 2023
- Graph 38: most popular types of gifts purchased for Christmas, 2022-23
- Graph 39: most popular purchased categories by gift buyers with a household income of over £75,000, 2022-23
- How much was spent on gifts
- Graph 40: ‘overall I spent more than I planned to this Christmas’, 2023
- Graph 41: average spent on Christmas gifts, by household income, 2022-23
- Graph 42: average spent on Christmas gifts, by parental status and age of children, 2022-23
- When gifts were purchased
- Graph 43: when christmas gift buying began, 2021-23
- Graph 44: Average spent on gifts by when consumers started their gift shopping, 2022-23
- Graph 45: when the most was spent on Christmas gifts, 2021-23
- Graph 46: when the most was spent on Christmas gifts, by when gift buying began, 2023
- Factors important when selecting gifts
- Graph 47: factors considered important when selecting which retailer to buy gifts from, 2023
- Graph 48: importance of price and payment options when selecting which retailer to buy gifts from, by financial situation, 2023
- Graph 49: factors selected as extremely important by those who describe their finances as healthy, 2023
- Graph 50: factors selected as extremely important by those who describe their finances as struggling/in-trouble, 2023
- Graph 51: ‘I used an artificial intelligence (AI) tool (eg ChatGPT, Google Bard) for gift inspiration’, by age, 2023
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Innovation and marketing trends
- Trends and innovations for Christmas 2023
- Advertising and marketing activity
- Graph 52: total recorded above-the-line, online display and direct mail spending by retailers on advertising during Q4, 2019-23
- Graph 53: leading retailers’ spending on recorded above-the-line, online display and direct mail advertising, 2021-23
- Graph 54: leading retailers’ spending on recorded above-the-line, online display and direct mail advertising, proportion of total spend by quarter, 2023
- Graph 55: recorded above-the-line, online display and direct mail advertising spend by retailers, by media type, Q4 2021-23
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Appendix
- Data sources, definitions and methodology
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