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Black Friday to advent calendars: sales trends this Christmas

Is Christmas getting earlier? The festive retail season used to launch in December but now we’re bombarded with Christmas ads and sales from as early as October.

Radio 4's You & Yours programme has been following the consumer and high street trends. With supermarkets unveiling their Christmas ranges in July, when are most of us hitting the shops, online or off? And what are the big trends we should have our eyes peeled for this yuletide?

Too soon? Christmas seems to arrive earlier every year.

When do most people start their Christmas shopping?

Black Friday

Black Friday is a day of deep discounts that migrated over from the United States. Officially, Black Friday is the day after the US holiday of Thanksgiving, which falls on the fourth Thursday in November. The event dates back to the early 1950s, when stores would kick off the Christmas shopping season with big sales, and profits would tip them back into “the black.” With the emergence of online shopping, the phenomenon soon spread around the world.

According to the online retailers trade body IMRG, a whopping £1.4bn was spent on online sales in the UK on Black Friday in 2017. That’s up around 11.7% on 2016. And although sales dwindled slightly in 2018, according to one report, shoppers are forecast to spend £2.53 billion this November 29th – a 3.4% increase on last year. With many Black Friday sales now starting as early as two weeks before the actual day, will shoppers spend more or have Black Friday fatigue?

The world's biggest online shopping day you haven’t heard of

Shari Vahl finds out more about the other online shopping day in November.

Cyber Monday

Cyber Monday is a term given to the Monday after Thanksgiving in the United States. The name was thought up by marketing companies as a way of encouraging consumers to shop online. Now, of course, we don’t need reminding to browse the web and a huge proportion of Black Friday shopping is done online too.

Black Friday dates back to the early 1950s, when stores would kick off the Christmas shopping season with big sales, and profits would tip them back into β€˜the black’.

Christmas Eve

Not all of us plan ahead, with a huge number of us leaving at least a proportion of our shopping until Christmas Eve. If you can keep a level head and hold your nerve, you can snap up a bargain the day before the big day. But remember to always check if Christmas Eve falls on a Sunday – your hamper-shopping plans could be hampered by early closing times!

Christmas Day

We now spend billions online on Christmas Day, bringing a whole new meaning to the expression “last-minute”. And interestingly, the big day itself is likely to be the busiest mobile phone shopping day of the year. (Unsurprising when you consider most of us have consumed so much it’s a struggle to leave the sofa.) According to one report, nearly two-thirds of online purchases made on Christmas Day last year were done on a smartphone.

Boxing Day

With the emergence of Black Friday, the Boxing Day sales are less significant than they used to be but eager punters still queue to reach the racks first – and purchases are still high. In 2017, Selfridges’ tills banked four million pounds in the first three hours of its sale and the retailer reported that Boxing Day would be its biggest trading day of the year.

For some, Boxing Day is a great day to pick up presents for the following year. (Just remember to keep gifts safely locked away from prying eyes, and don’t forget where you’ve put them come December.)

All year round

, Gloucestershire, sells Christmas paraphernalia all year long. Established in 1985, the shop began by selling traditional German Christmas products. These are still available to buy today – along with baubles, fabric Santas, elaborate advent calendars, lanterns and carol singer table decorations.

Andy Park is an electrician from Wiltshire who claims to have celebrated Christmas Day (almost) every day since July 1993. Over the years Park has sent himself more than 235,500 Christmas cards.

What are this year’s Christmas trends?

Advent calendars are now big business:

Until just recently, advent calendars were simple cardboard affairs with (if you were lucky) a little chocolate behind each window. But advent calendars for adults are taking the world by storm: you can now purchase calendars concealing luxury beauty products, cheese, miniature gins, craft beers, flavoured teas, flower seeds… the list goes on.

And whereas they used to cost less than a fiver, the prices are ramping up too with many advent products reaching triple figures.

Tiffany & Co has unveiled what is indisputably the world's most expensive advent calendar at £104,000! The gifts to be found behind each of the 24 doors on the four-foot high calendar include jewellery and perfume. They did recognise that demand was likely to be relatively small however, and produced just four.

Christmas Eve boxes:

The Christmas Eve box is another phenomenon that’s sweeping the nation, thought to be derived from the German tradition of opening presents the night before Christmas. Many families are now buying or creating boxes or crates filled with thoughtful treats to give to their children (or each other) on the 24th December, as a way to keep everyone occupied and ease some of the desperation of waiting for Santa.

Popular contents include Christmassy pyjamas, sweets, and festive films. Many people are investing in personalised wooden boxes that can be used again and again.

Elves on shelves and Santa cams:

Another Christmas craze that has reached us from the States has its roots in a book called The Elf on the Shelf, in which Santa’s elves are said to hide in every home in the run up to Christmas in order to watch over children in the household. Any good – or more importantly – bad behaviour is then reported back to the big man himself, who can take any offending children off his “nice list”.

Parents are now getting hold of toy elves for their own shelves, and informing their progeny that they are being scrutinised as a way to encourage good behaviour. Canny mums and dads then move the little figure around the house each night to create the effect that he is reporting back to the boss and then returning to a different location.

And then there’s the Santa Cam. A fake camera, often concealed within a bauble, that flashes a red light to remind kids that Father Christmas “has his eye on them”.

Although some parents are all for a bit of help keeping unruly kids in line, others have suggested that children can become paranoid about Santa or his staff watching their every move. (Not to mention terrified about a wooden toy coming to life.) An invasion of privacy or helpful parenting tools that add to the magic of Christmas? The jury's out.