MilleŚwięta 2017 survey – how much will Poles spend on Christmas?

- The growth of declared spending results from the optimism among households, which in turn comes from falling unemployment, growing real income and in consequence optimistic expectations of the future and greater propensity to increase consumer spending. In the last quarters consumption has been the main driver of economic growth and this should also be visible during Christmas. Also bearing on nominal spending is higher inflation, especially the growing prices of food, which leads to higher nominal cost of Christmas preparations – Grzegorz Maliszewski, Chief Economist of Bank Millennium, said.

In the group of families receiving the 500+ benefit estimated total household spending on Christmas 2017 is PLN 4.43bn. On average a family – Family 500+ programme beneficiary will be spending PLN 1692.27 on this year’s Christmas. This spending will on average be almost PLN 80 higher than the average value for all families.

The most popular place for Christmas groceries shopping are discount stores. This is where more than 43% of persons polled will shop. Hyper/supermarkets are equally popular (42.8%). Almost 36% will buy groceries in a specific shop (however not a discount store or hyper/supermarket, with more than 26% going to do it on a food market. Fewer than 3% will buy their Christmas groceries online using a computer.

The most popular place where the Poles are planning to buy presents is a super or hypermarket. Almost one out of two shoppers will go there. What is important is that more than 42% of persons polled are planning to make such purchases online, traditionally by using a computer. Almost one out of twenty persons polled are planning to buy presents by using a mobile device. Fewer than 18% are planning to go shopping to a specialised shop. A food and drink market is the place where the respondents are much more willing to buy food than presents.

As was the case last year, Poles will usually find cosmetics and perfume under the Christmas tree (46.2%), meanwhile children will enjoy toys (42.1%). Books came third, just as a year ago. This year persons polled said they will be less willing to buy electronics (14.4%). One out of ten is planning to buy computer or console games.

Most of the persons polled will spend this Christmas at home (58.2%), while slightly over 36% will spend it with their relatives. During the Christmas period 3% intend to take a holiday somewhere in Poland and only 2% will visit their friends or acquaintances.

Survey metrics: the survey was made by Instytut Badań Rynkowych i Społecznych IBRiS on 7-8 November 2017 on a representative national sample of 1000 mature Poles. Survey technique: CATI. The total amount of spending is calculated on the basis of declarations of respondents, specifying their planned Christmas spending amount. The calculation uses GUS demographic data concerning population distribution as well as number and structure of households. Data concerning households covered by the Family 500+ programme come from declarations of the persons polled as well as statistics provided by the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy.