Christmas shopping: The ultimate guide to finding the perfect present

Gird your loins - and your wrapping paper

Wednesday 19 December 2018 13:40 GMT

(Rex)

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Frenzied, shambolic and plagued by last-minute desperation: Christmas shopping is not for the faint-hearted.

Supermarket adverts and kitsch Richard Curtis films (ahem, Love Actually) may seduce you into sentimentality, but for many, the festive season is actually just one long endurance test of trawling through websites and shop crowds in a bid to find the best gifts.

But what makes the perfect present? What separates the thoughtful gift-givers from the thoughtless ones? And is it possible to please everyone without getting your tinsel in a tangle?

Fear not, because we’ve compiled the ultimate Christmas shopping guide to tend to all your niche purchasing needs.

Consider this your cheat sheet to becoming the savviest shopper around.

When should you start?

As with most arduous tasks, preparation is key. When it comes to Christmas shopping, the earlier you start, the better.

In 2016, research conducted by PWC revealed that the busiest shopping day of the festive season was 23 December. Do not be that person - imagine how sweaty you’ll be after hours of dashing through the busy shops, without a one-horse open sleigh.

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With some major retailers launching their Christmas campaigns as early as October, there’s no such thing as being premature with your present-buying. If you have a long list of people to buy for, draw up a schedule and dedicate days to finding gifts for each of them. That way, you’ll avoid the scrambles and shambles that predicate last-minute shopping.

What should your budget be?

If you missed the Black Friday bargains, don’t worry, there are still plenty of retailers offering deals right up until Christmas Day, making it easier for you to stay within your shopping budget.

But working out how much to spend on people can be quite the political endeavour e.g. “well, uncle Fred told me he didn’t like my new haircut, so I’ll only spend £10 on him. But aunt Nancy said she liked the fringe, so she gets £20.”

According to MoneySavingExpert, the trick is to identify how much you’re actually able to spend in total before hitting the shops, then you can divide accordingly and avoid starting the new year without so much as a single penny to your name.

Budgeting experts at the company also advise making the most of aggregated shopping tools, such as Google Shopping, to help you find the cheapest prices for individual items.

Find their budget planning tool here.

To be or not to be an online shopper?

This very much depends on your shopping personality. Are you someone who enjoys seeing, touching and smelling products before committing to buying them? Or are you quite happy to judge a book by its cover, and be done with it all in a matter of clicks?

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One of the main advantages of doing all your Christmas shopping online is that it enables you to see the best deals, which may not be quite so obvious in the stores themselves. Plus, it gives you the chance to compare prices for items at different retailers.

But then again, some people get a kick out of the huge crowds and long queues that characterise the offline shopping experience. Power to them.