Wednesday through Saturday to stay busy in stores, but gift spending declines

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Dec 21, 2022

Some £1.59 billion worth of festive spending is forecast to happen on Wednesday, making it the biggest spending day this week. But gift spending is lagging against a year ago for the season as a whole.

That’s according to Voucher Codes, which has been predicting overall spend for each pre-Christmas shopping day in the last week-plus.

The Wednesday figure doesn’t quite match the £1.63 billion it was predicting for last Saturday (or Super Saturday is it’s known), but it's still the highest daily spend of the immediate pre-Christmas week.

However, this week’s daily figures are lower year on year, partly due to the cost-of-living crisis, but also because of Christmas being on Sunday, which gives people an extra shopping day (Christmas was on Saturday last year).

The impact of the cost-of-living crisis can also be seen from the fact that gift spending overall for Christmas is predicted to be down 6.8% year-on-year. At £11.59 billion, it’s likely to be lower not only than 2021, but 2020 and 2019 as well. That said, gifting will retain the largest share of spend at 53.7%.

Back with Wednesday, Voucher Codes believes most of the day’s money will be spent in person and it's set to be the "most lucrative day" for physical stores with a £1.03 billion spend. Many shoppers will feel that they have to go physical to avoid the worry of goods ordered online not arriving.

What’s perhaps more surprising given that many retailers have now shut their windows for pre-Christmas delivery, is that millions are still shopping online, as can be seen by the difference between that £1.03 billion figure and the overall Wednesday spend prediction of £1.59 billion. 

E-shopping is set to decline throughout the rest of this week, however, as at-home or click & collect delivery options narrow even further. Yet the report is still predicting that Thursday will see an online spend of £0.47 billion, Friday will see £0.46 billion and Saturday £0.29 billion.

As for overall spend, the company is predicting that £1.31 billion will be splashed out on Thursday, £1.49 billion on Friday and £1.26 billion on Saturday. 

Interestingly, it's also predicting that £1.08 billion will be spent on Sunday by 12 million shoppers, which, of course, will be happening online given that virtually all shops will be shut. If it's correct, it continues the now-well-established UK tradition of large numbers of consumers, shopping from home on the big day itself.

That comes as the clearance sales that traditionally kicked off on Boxing Day now often start on Christmas Day with the hours after Christmas dinner has concluded being key for online shopping.

Voucher Codes said that in the nine days including 17 December and Christmas Day, £12.11 billion will be spent.