Boxing Day Blues, Gift Cards, and Why Piers Morgan Hates Me

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Today, I'm diving into the Boxing Day blues. Why more people

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are ditching physical presents, how cash, gift cards and

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experiences are beginning to take over and what smart retailers can do to keep the

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trust and loyalty and the profits intact.

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You know that sinking feeling when you've just found the perfect

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gift, wrapped it beautifully and handed it over with pride

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and two days later, it's half price online. Annoying, isn't it?

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It's changing Christmas shopping faster than you can say Boxing Day sale. So

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it's become the new festive tradition. You've spent 60 quid on something

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and you've given it as a gift with pride. Bing. Sale now.

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On. There it is in your email. Same product, 30 quid.

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Merry Christmas. No. No wonder we keep

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those gift receipts. Yeah. Retail

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reckoning. Retail reckonin.

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No space for dusty shelves. Cause

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retail reckon.

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According to Retail Economics, in 2023, 30% of

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shoppers felt cheated by post Christmas discounts.

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That's a lot. That's not festive cheer, that's

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festive grumbling. And it's also creating a trust issue. Once

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customers are feeling let down, they don't just stop buying, they actually

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start, well, watching, searching,

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analysing. They're waiting, doing the comparison

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sites, looking for vouchers and running Google

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shopping results and so on. You've now created a bargain hunter

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for life. But retail's responsible for creating this monster.

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Our industry is as good as trained customers to wait.

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And every year we've reinforced the deals start after

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Christmas. Now, the only thing that might make a difference is either

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I've really got to have this for the festivities. For example, you've got guests

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coming over and the mattress in the spare room's all a bit saggy,

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so you must have a new mattress for Christmas. Fair enough. It's not really a

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gift either, is it? The only other one that works is when it's gone, it's

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gone. Scarcity factor brings on fomo. Fear of

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missing out. So that's the only type of product where I think they

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can get away with getting the customer to buy. I suppose

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pretty much everything else. It's now become awkward. You're

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not sure because post Christmas we're seeing more and more buyers

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remorse and it's actually affecting our behavior. The

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ONS have said that a quarter of purchases in 2024

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were happening in the final week before Christmas and that's 20%

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more than five years ago. That's not just procrastination,

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that's people thinking hard about whether they should or shouldn't

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buy. And despite

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lots of people who obviously suffering cost of living crisis and trying to spread

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their spending so it doesn't all land on the January bank balance or

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card balance. They're waiting and they're worried about that

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awful sinking feeling when something they've just spent a fortune on is

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half price the next day. It's just that upset, that

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seriously annoying feeling. And it makes people feel like the

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retailers are playing games with them, because if they can sell it for that price

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one day later, were they ripping me off this time?

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So essentially, customers have been holding back and it's been happening for years.

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There used to be a really steady spend from about the

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beginning of December and I remember years ago when I was doing some

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consultancy with Woolworths. That is a long time ago, because obviously they've not

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been around for a while, but you can have a look at the demand

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profile and it was relatively consistent throughout the whole of December.

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More recently, it's pretty flat for most of December. And then there's

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this massive great peak because people are holding off and they're

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waiting for emails, they're waiting for discount vouchers. Get 50% off.

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Now, using the code retailreckoning, and I call

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it the game of chicken between the customer and the retailer. But the

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customer's winning because the retailers are panicking. Now,

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if customers are holding back spend on gift products and seasonal

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stock, at what point do the retailers have to drop the prices

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and break into sale mode? And over the last few years, we've seen that

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happening even before Christmas, because they've got so much

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gift stock that nobody's buying yet, because they've got this if I

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wait little discount.

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The other thing that shoppers are doing to avoid feeling bad

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about gifting is they're giving things like cash,

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gift cards, even digital wallets these days.

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Apparently gift card sales jumped 12%

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year on year in 2024, especially for

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the quite high value brackets. The thing is, this is

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quite clever psychologically. The giver is avoiding

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their buyer's remorse. The receiver's got freedom to go and buy whatever they

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actually want and they feel smart. But

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what I know from previous analytics is a

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massive proportion of gift cards never get redeemed.

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So that must mean there's billions of pounds that's been spent with retailers

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sitting in drawers or in wallets or in expired accounts.

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Actually, this is a bit of a win for the retailers because they've had the

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cash upfront, they've not had to give out any stock. There's no risk

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of a refund whilst the customer thinks they've been quite clever.

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Cash is king for me. I certainly feel like gift cards

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are sort of cash that's constrained to where you're allowed to

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spend it, whereas cash is in fact obviously spendable anywhere.

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So if anybody's thinking about giving a gift card this year, based on the fact

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that they hardly ever get redeemed, or only something like a small proportion get

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redeemed, I go with the cash idea. There's been a bit of an

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emotional shift too, and I think this is especially since COVID

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because people couldn't be with loved ones and they're

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investing more in buying memories rather than merchandise. So

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it's sort of experience over stuff. Barclays

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has shown that there's been a 5 to 7% year on year growth

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on things like dining, theatre, spa days and travel instead,

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instead of gifting. And the age range for that is especially 25 to

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40. So that's going to be younger people going out, perhaps as

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couples, friend groups or perhaps families. And

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I think we've all got too much stuff. I'm not sure

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customers really want to own much more stuff, but they like to feel

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something. So that day out with the kids or the theatre ticket,

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mini break or spa day, it's the sense of

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we did something together with some photographs, maybe Instagram moments and

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so on. They're the new status symbols. So

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retailers need to be quite creative. What can you do to

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connect a product to an experience to encourage

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somebody to buy it? So maybe something

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very low cost, could be an artisan or a personalised

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mug, but with a coffee shop voucher. Or

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you might give a voucher towards a spa day with

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a makeup set or a pampering set or even some nice candles.

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Or it might be a homeware type item

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paired with a contribution to somebody doing an interior

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styling session for you, who knows? But it's

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all about this emotion and value perception. And

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honestly, to me, emotion and value are

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inextricably linked and they never go out of fashion.

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But here's where the industry becomes its own worst enemy.

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The minute those shops shut on Christmas Eve, and I'm sure you've seen it

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yourselves, the emails start coming in online sales live now.

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Yeah, okay. It kills off dead stock and, you know, it gets rid of stuff

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that perhaps you don't need beyond Christmas. It doesn't just kill

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off stock, though, it kills off goodwill because from the customer's point of view, you

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feel betrayed. What if you've just been out all day scrambling around

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the shops last minute because you've been at work and you've only got Christmas Eve

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to do your shopping and 20 minutes after you get a cup of tea and

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sit down and put your feet up, your phone goes mad with emails telling you

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everything you've just bought is 40% off. It's not festive

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cheer. It's downright upsetting for me, though. What's the solution?

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Honesty, Integrity. That would help, wouldn't it?

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I actually think there's a brilliant solution. It's a price

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promise and I've seen it done by a couple of

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businesses whereby if you buy before Christmas,

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they say if our price drops within seven days or 14

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days of Christmas, we will refund the difference.

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Now, okay, that's given away margin. But what it is

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doing is it's making people have the confidence to buy and

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it's giving them back the power to think, well, I prefer to give a gift.

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I like to see my kids unwrap something and watch their faces.

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I don't want them to just open an envelope with a tenner or 20 quid

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in it. So it makes it so that Boxing Day isn't a

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loyalty disaster. We mustn't forget,

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actually, what makes Christmas happen in store is the people, the

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staff. And a lot of retailers are actually choosing out. There's

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been all sorts of campaigns. I remember quite a few years ago now, I was

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on Good Morning Britain with Piers Morgan. I pulled a funny face and

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made him swear at the time. People like you are encouraging the nation

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to, on these special days to start shopping again

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when they could just have a day off. 22 million other people, not

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just people like me, are wanting to shop on Boxing Day because all these deals.

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But hang on, that is because all these extraordinary

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deals are being made available on Christmas Day and Boxing

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Day. My argument is, don't let them do it, say no, you

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can't make any deals. Otherwise. Take us back 100 years

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when you didn't have 50% off the bloody arms

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language. I know you're. I apologize, but I do, I do feel strongly about

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this. Stop people like you whetting everything.

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I'd love to take responsibility for mobilizing 22 million people

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into the high street, but I can't on my own. But it was about, should

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we make people work on Boxing Day? And it was a whole debate, there

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was a big petition and as a result of that, actually quite a lot of

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retailers are choosing to close on Boxing Day. The premise is

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to give teams a proper break. Others choose to stay open. Now,

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Boxing Day going out to the shops was actually a bit of a family day

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out. And perhaps it's a break from eating too much and arguing over

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Monopoly. But the truth is, some staff want to

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work somewhere. I read that 60% of retail staff like

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to choose their festive shifts and other prefer guaranteed

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time off. Typically, what happens in retail is you either work

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Christmas or New Year, but there's not one size fits

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all. And there are people who've got maybe no family or friends

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locally and they might prefer to work all the shifts. The

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camaraderie of being with their colleagues beats a solo dinner of beans on toast

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and reruns of Christmas classics, after all. And I think

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culture's everything as long as teams feel that

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they've been treated fairly. Those who want to work can throw their cap in the

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ring at the beginning. Those who say, I'd rather have time off can,

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you know, negotiate it. And if you make sure you look after

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these people in the run up to Christmas and in maybe the sales season

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afterwards, you'll get better service, better energy and better loyalty.

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Because nothing's going to kill festive spirit and customer

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experience faster than a bunch of resentful staff

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on the shop floor who really, really don't want to be there.

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So I guess my retail reckoning for

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you this Christmas. Christmas is customers need to

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have honesty and reassurance in order to spend, so

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that price promise could be a winner. Cash and gift

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cards are the safe options. Experience

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is where, you know, the emotional connection with a brand

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marries with the value perception. So

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that's when people really feel special and, as

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always, staff how they're treated. The culture

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is the secret certainty of loyalty.

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So which of those are you going to do this festive season? I'm

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Claire Bailey, the retail champion and this has been retail reckoning. Yeah,

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retail reckoning. Retail

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reckoning. No space for dusty

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shelves. Cause retail reckoning

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owns the

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floor.