BRITS SET FOR £5.5 BILLION SALES SPENDING SPREE

Brits will make up for a quiet Christmas on the High Street by splashing out £1.7billion1 more in this year’s January sales than they did in 2005, according to new research from Direct Line Home Insurance.

Nearly half (43 per cent) say that they deliberately reined in their pre-Christmas spending, many with a view to picking up items at bargain prices in the January sales. Brits predict that they will spend £5.5billion in total this year, compared with the £3.7billion they spent last year.2

The most popular buy this year will be electrical goods, with sales shoppers intending to spend £316 on MP3 players, televisions and DVD players. Other popular items include household goods like kitchenware and furniture (£288) and clothing and accessories (£75).

In order to fund this discount shopping binge, 2.73 million people (6 per cent) asked relatives to give them cash or vouchers rather than gifts for Christmas. This means that an estimated £1.9billion3 in cash is currently stashed in Britain’s homes waiting to be spent.

Specific purchases earmarked by shoppers include footwear, with more than one in five (21 per cent) Brits saying they want to pick up a brand new pair of shoes. Other popular items include woolly jumpers and other knitwear (10 per cent) kitchenware (8 per cent), digital cameras (6 per cent) and DVD players (5 per cent).

Britain’s most dedicated bargain hunters are the Scots, who expect to spend an average of £269 each. By contrast, Geordies are the least tempted by the bright lights of the high street, with consumers in the North East set to spend just £76 each this year.

Andrew Lowe, Head of Direct Line Home, comments:

“It may have been a quiet Christmas on the high street, but it looks like shoppers will make up for it in this year’s sales, picking up luxury goods for a fraction of the price they would have been before Christmas.

“Homeowners just need to remember that all of these purchases are likely to bump up the value of their home contents. Nearly a quarter (23 per cent) of Brits tell us that they don’t re-calculate the value of their household contents after the January sales, which is unwise.

“We would encourage consumers to include re-evaluating the value of their home contents among their New Year’s resolutions.”

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Simon Ziviani / Direct Line Press Office
Tel: 0845 878 2270 / simon.ziviani@directline.com

Notes to editor

Research –
The research was carried out online between 9th-12th December 2005.  YouGov interviewed a total of 2,345 UK adults aged 18 and above.
1. 2.  UK adult population is 45.5million (ONS). Adults predict they will spend an average of £122.20 each in the 2006 sales = £5,560,100,000. Last year, each adult spent an average of £82.82 = £3,768,310,000. Difference = £1,791,790,000
3. 41 per cent of adults will give cash or vouchers this year, at an average of £106.24 each = £1,981,907,200