Are you planning to do your Christmas shopping online this year?

If not then you bloomin well should be!!! Obviously we've got a vested interest in encouraging people to get out their lap tops as opposed to donning their overcoats but we need more than just ghusto. We need good hard evidence. So, we tasked super statto - Amanda - to look into the effects on your ticker, your wallet and the World in general of high street shopping and she came back with some pretty alarming stats which you can see below...

Health Impact

When it comes to the stress caused by high street Christmas shopping, it can have a very real impact on your health. Here's some alarming stats:

• 50% of shoppers experience an increase in blood pressure that can be classed as dangerous. According to NHS Direct blood pressure levels of 140/90mmHg are classed as high so beware!
• 10%  of shoppers increase in heart rate.
• 47% of shoppers suffer from headaches.
• More likely to come into contact with cold and flu germs

It gets worse!

According to NHS Direct numerous injuries incurred during Christmas shopping include cuts from packaging, strains and sprains from carrying heavy bags and bruises from other shoppers, whilst a women had her arm broken at a Toys R Us store in the US after being trampled by other shoppers during post Thanks Giving sales (www.angelfire.com).

So, has anyone actually died Christmas Shopping?

Unfortunately YES!

A 75 year old women died in Oxford in 2008 after being knocked to the ground while Christmas shopping (Daily Mail), whilst in the US in 2008 several people were trampled to death by eager shoppers in shopping malls (ABC news).

The Weather

If the potential of getting seriously injured is not bad enough there's the cold weather to contend with as well...

Last Christmas snowfall increased in 2010 by 45% on 2009 at an average snowfall of 8.4cm throughout the entire country (NOAA)! 76cm of snow fell in the Peak District on 1st Dec 2010 and snow fell on 12 days between 1st Dec and Christmas Day.

whilst the average maximum temperature was a paltry 4.5 degrees centigrade and minimum of -1.2oC (Met Office). In fact, 2010 was the coldest December for 120years! The maximum temperature in Dec was 12C, whilst the lowest was -21.3C, with a shocking average temperature of -0.6C. The temperature fell below -18C on 10 nights. Brrrr!

Strangely enough 7 out of 10 people say online Christmas shopping is more relaxing than the high street. Go figure!

Stress

So, what is it about Christmas shopping that people find stressful?

In short this is pretty obvious (but we've made a nice graphic for it anyway!). Things that people find stressful are:

1. Crowds
2. Queues
3. Not knowing what to buy
4. The cost
5. Not finding what you want. Grrrrr.

With all this "stressfulness" people become agitated and then bad things tend to happen!

A Walmart worker died during Black Friday in 2008 whilst 2 men were shot at ToysRus in California during the same 'festive' season (CNN News). Thankfully there were no deaths in 2009 but there were a number of stabbings whilst at a Memphis store shoppers threatened queue jumpers with tazers and pepper spray (consumerist.com). Last year 7 people died, one of whom was a man stabbed by a fellow shopper to prevent him buying the last Xbox 360, whilst another was a women bludgeoned to death for a doll (www.uncoeror.com).

Don't believe us? Check out some of the links on Youtube here and here which aptly demonstrate the madness!!!

Whatever happened to 'Goodwill to all men'?

Wealth Impact

If you compare the cost of doing your Christmas shopping on the High Street compared to Online, it would look something like this:

The High Street

Petrol - The average cost of fuel is 133.8ppl Unleaded(AA). The average journey in to a town is 12 miles – so this is going to cost £2.09 each way in petrol. Cost = £4.18.

Parking in city centre for 6 hours  = £7.50

Refreshments e.g. coffee = £2.80

Lunch - sandwich, crisps and drink = £3.30-£6.05

Total = £17.78 - £19.53

Online

Delivery Charge = £4.00 average

Refreshments e.g. coffee = £0.23

Lunch - sandwich,  crisps and drink = £1.80-£2.00

Total = £6.03-£6.23

Plus products are on average 15-20% cheaper online and sometimes even 50% cheaper and it's easier to compare prices.

But what does this mean in real terms?

Savings would be £13.30 per person, which are gargantuan £812 million based on the adult population of the UK which could buy 17,500 units to house the homeless or could pay the salary of 37,600 newly qualified teachers for a year, or if the mood take you 10 Cristiano Ronaldo's!

Environmental Impact

Every year we throw away 100,00 tonnes of carrier bags. This is the equivalent weight of 14,285 male adult elephants (each weigh a splendid 7 tonnes) or 500 Boeing 747s (which come in at a huge 200 tonnes each).

There is an 18% increase in carrier bag usage at Christmas compared to the rest of the year.

Traffic pollution increases in the run up to Christmas due to increase use of cars and increased journey times due to congestion. The average emissions per 12 mile journey is a huge 0.01 tonnes of CO2 based on average petrol car! (www.carbonfootprint.com)

Time Factor

You'll also save time shopping online.

The average time online shopping in total is 6 hours (ISACA), whilst shopping on the high street on average time is 3 times this at 18 hours over several trips. The average length of 1 shopping trip according to a recent John Lewis Christmas Survey is 3 hours. Online shopping therefore equates to 840hrs time saving per shopper per lifetime which they could spend flying to New York and back 60 times, Cycling from Land’s End to John o’Groats and back with a few days spare. Alternatively you could read War and Peace (twice), or watch all the James Bond, Harry Potter, Lord of Rings and Star Wars films 9 times each!!!

Conclusion

So there you have it folks. Conclusive proof that it is detrimental to your health, wealth and the environment if you shop on the High Street this Christmas. We suggest you stop it pronto!

Disclaimer: Prezzybox disclaims any inaccuracies in the content contained in this blog post/release. Our analyst spent days and days toiling over the content and to the best of our knowledge it is all correct. If it’s not then you have our humbug apologies!

Sources used include www.BBC.com, www.NHSdirect.com, Daily Mail, ABC News, CNN US, www.carbonfootprint.com, ISACA, Met Office, www.boeing.co.uk, The AA, UK Crime Stats, www.consumerist.com, www.angelfire.com, www.prnewswire.co.uk.

Being the type of company who like to interact with our customers (OK, our analyst/bloggers are a wee bit nosey!!) we thought we'd do a little experiment based on peoples spending habits to see if there is any correlation between the amount of money they spend on gifts for the ones they love and the duration they stay with their nearest and dearest. 

Valentine’s Day presented itself as the perfect opportunity to run such a survey as surely as a nation, this is when we are at our most generous and offer our protestations of love to our nearest and dearest in the form of a goody of one type or another.

On this premise, We somewhat ingeniously entitled this the:

"Does how much you spend on your other half determine how long you'll be with them? Survey".

Catchy.

From the outset we have to say the survey has revealed some interesting and slightly alarming results!

Out of the 168 respondents, the data shows that people who spend the lowest amount on gifts for each other stay together longer. Eeeek!

I know that this is sure to strike a note of terror into every chocolate loving; handbag toting; jewellery wearing; designer-label clad woman the World across, but the facts speak for themselves! In a nutshell, people who spend less stay together longer. (Men all over the country are rubbing their hands together with glee!)

Don't believe us? Here's  a couple of the obligatory, all important (although slightly dull looking) pie charts:

The survey showed that in the group of people spending £10 or less on their Valentine, a whopping 67% of them have been together for more than 11yrs! In the group spending £30 or less, only a third of them have been together for more than 11 yrs; and for those of us who weighed in for a prezzy between £30 and £50 on their Valentines, only a paltry 20% have been together for more than 11 years.

More alarmingly - especially for those who like the finer things in life - of  those who spent £50 or more for their "gift of luuurrrve" only a measly 15% of them have been together with their loved one for more than 11yrs and a whopping 31% of them will be moving on to pastures new relationship wise in less than 3 years. Gulp!

By now I'm sure that every red blooded woman will be sitting down in a cold sweat and men everywhere will be cheering! Unless of course they want to split up with their 'other half' as it could end up costing em!

Sylvia Edwards - content Editor for Prezzybox.com commented "Although the results were slightly surprising, the news isn’t all bad though as the survey also shows that generally speaking, men tend to spend more than women on gifts for their loved ones". Ah but, hang on a minute, from the survey’s point of view, that means the relationship will not necessarily last! Drat! Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place!

I guess the way to look at this is in a positive way and ask whether the duration of the relationship is more important than expensive gifts. A friend of mine used to test the strength of her feelings for a man by asking herself whether she would rather spend an hour with said beau or an hour perusing the racks in Marks and Spencer, and the one time M & S lost, she married the man! She was more interested in spending the rest of her life with this man than in wondering how much he would spend on presents for her on St. Valentines Day and they are still together now. Who said romance was dead?

Most women would I think agree that a single rose says so much more than a whole bunch of roses and even a cheap bouquet of flowers bought hastily from a service station for no reason at all can mean the world if it says “I love you”.

I think most men would simply utter one word. "Hallelujah".

Maybe we should all take heart from the immortal words of two of our best loved, intelligent and enduring songwriters, namely, Lennon and McCartney when they sang….

“I don't care too much for money, money can't buy me love”. It seems they got it right.

Today is Pants Day at Prezzybox HQ, we're all wearing our pants on the outside for the day to raise money for Orchid male cancer charity!

We've had a great time showing off our amazing underwear, even Polly joined in!

Everyone looks brilliant in their pants, and we've raised some money too!

Have you been wearing your pants today? We'd love to see some pics!

Until Next Time

Kat x