The majority of Spaniards leave their Christmas shopping until the last minute

NEARLY half of Spain's consumers leave their Christmas shopping until December, reported on-line suppliers eBay yesterday. eBay claimed in their report that people in Spain don't start shopping until 13th December, second only to Ireland where the majority of consumers don't think of buying presents until the 14th of this month.

In fact, nearly half of all consumers (49%) taking part in the survey admitted that they don't go about Christmas shopping in an organised manner through making lists, but rather that they kept “window shopping” until they saw what they wanted.

However, 22 percent of women, said the report, confessed to thinking of the perfect gift for their loved ones throughout the year. In this respect, the survey revealed that women (67 percent of them) “worry more than men” about choosing something which their nearest and dearest would really appreciate, in contrast to only 55 percent of the men interviewed. Furthermore, 54 percent of women said they prefer to give rather than to receive, compared to 45 percent of men.

These figures emerged in a study which had also been conducted at a European level in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom. Researching the number of Christmas presents that Spaniards receive, eBay said that 22 percent are given between 3 and 5 gifts. Last year a minority of 22 percent received between 6 and 10 presents whilst women apparently get double the number of presents than men, between 11 and 30.