Retail formats for in-store Christmas shopping Spain 2019

For most Spaniards, Christmas is a time for joy, family gatherings, traditional sweets and carols. For most retailers, Christmas represents the busiest shopping season of the year. According to the most recent surveys, Spaniards preferred to do their in-store Christmas shopping mostly in department stores, as reported by over 53 percent of respondents. Specialized chains and supermarkets ranked second and third as the most favorite places for the Spanish population to do their Christmas shopping, with 44.2 percent and 43.2 percent of respondents in 2019 respectively.

Oh, oh, oh; sweet Christmas

Christmas seems to be the perfect season of the year to satisfy our sweet tooth or so it seems when looking at the latest reports. Spain’s Christmas sweet consumption per person has been fluctuating around 0.8 kilograms per person over the last few years, with Spanish turrón (traditional Christmas nougat) hitting over 60 percent of yearly sales during the holiday season. In 2017, Spain was the country that featured the largest food budget for the holiday season in Europe at around 195 euros.

Last Christmas I gave you… a cellphone

Electronics seem to have gained popularity as a Christmas gift in the recent years, with most seasonal online searches corresponding to this type of product in 2017. The second and third most searched categories online were, respectively, board games and dolls and teddy bears. Most Spaniards that did some research on the net prior to their Christmas shopping did so on online retail sites, with nearly 52 percent of the surveyed population in 2018. That same year, the estimated holiday season expenditure on Christmas gifts reached 241 euros per household, exceeding the projected amount for food, which stood at 173 euros per household.