Unloved gifts waste €3.7bn at Christmas

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Nov 29, 2016

With fashion being one of the key gifting categories at Christmas, a new international study shows that UK consumers are the most likely to receive Christmas gifts they don’t want with 29% of consumers saying they received an unloved gift.

The ING International Survey Special Report: Christmas 2016 spoke to 13,500 people in Europe, the US and Australia about their finances at Christmas. It found that nearly one in seven (15%) people in Europe who received a gift last year had at least one they didn't want, didn't appreciate or couldn't use. A further 8% couldn’t even remember whether they liked the gifts they received.

This is the equivalent of at least 81m unwanted gifts, at an estimated €45 each.

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While UK consumers were most likely to be unhappy, there were closely followed by those in Italy (28%) and Romania (27%), though people in the Czech Republic were the most likely to forget how they felt about their presents altogether.

And while an estimated €3.7bn was effectively wasted on unappreciated presents last year, 10% of people in Europe drove themselves into debt to pay for Christmas.

The countries that were least likely to appreciate their gifts also tended to be more likely to go into debt, with Romania (19%) and the UK topping the list (17%), indicating that they could be parting with their hard earned cash for a limited return.

The research also found that 70% of people in Europe actually feel that Christmas has become too focused on spending money with shopping events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday adding to the pressure many feel, encouraging people to panic-purchase gifts that might not be appreciated.