Shoppers Warned to Shop Early for Christmas or Miss Out
In the News
Just seen a very interesting article on the BBC about buying early for Christmas (Without panic buying) or you could miss out if you leave it to the last minute.
With three months exactly to go until the big day, it is looking more and more uncertain about families being able to spend Christmas together this year and with a huge increase in demand for online shopping, people are being advised to spread their Christmas present shopping out and not wait until the last minute this year.
Lots of companies that usually do big pre-Christmas sales and events in store are scaling back and even pulling them all together. The Smyths Toys £10 off £50 / £20 off £100 event has already been cancelled and Sainsbury's are scaling right back their half price toy event this year so there are not masses of people in the shop. They are going to be focusing on the Argos arm of their retail empire so people can buy online and either get delivery or socially distanced click and collect.
Even before lockdown, online retail sales were up 5% year on year and now its more like 40 - 50% increase and has stayed around 30% more since they were allowed to fully re-open.
Read the full article from the BBC - HERE
Will this change your shopping habits and will you be getting your shopping done earlier this year?
I will do what I normally do spread it out over the remaining last weeks. What not able to get is tuff it’s not what’s under the tree that counts it’s who is around it.
We always go minimal for Christmas anyway so this doesn't really worry me. I've already got my sons Christmas presents in the cupboard, bought with a gift voucher that I won. I'm not bothered if we don't get presents from our family this year, I would rather they saved the money they would have spent on presents and use it to pay for the petrol and hotel to come visit us when able to.
We are not doing anything too lavish,one main gift for the kids,plus little gifts.Only need to get my son's main pressie,other half and I treat ourselves throughout the year,so no pressure to rush out and spend x
The best prices overall were before the world went crazy with house arrests everywhere, but especially in U.K. what was cheap, was hiked up.
Finding the type of deals I want these days are hard to find because they're almost retail price.
I admit that I was a little surprised that BBC felt the need to mention it - aren't they adding to the panic by doing so? It's like saying 'don't picture a purple elephant with yellow spots' (you know you couldn't block that image popping up ) Hopefully the organisations are much better prepared now and people will find their inner good sense.....
Shop early for Christmas and without panic buying seems to be a contradiction in terms. The moment this article became public people were going to panic and start going mad trying to get their stuff. I mean who will think ooooh I had better get a few bits each week? No one! They will all think they had better get in before everyone else.
I’ve bought a couple of bits already and I usually start ramping up the gift buying from beginning of October anyway, just to spread the cost a little. Who knows what Christmas will be this year but even if it’s just me and my little family of 4 I want it to still be magical for the kids. We all need something to look forward to
not even begun to think about gift buying or Christmas! ...too much real stuff going on and I do think it's a bit early when I'm still waiting for Summer!
I have bought a lot of things for Christmas. I just have to wait until the beauty advent calendars come out in boots and then I'll be all set
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