Almost a quarter (23%) of alcohol buyers claim that they will be purchasing the alcohol they need for Christmas by the end of November, with a further 19% claiming they will have done so by the first week in December. Recent research on behalf of Retail Intelligence by Empathy Research, amongst a nationally representative sample of 1,000 adults aged 18+, sought to identify how shoppers behave when it comes to purchasing alcohol over the festive period in the off-trade.
While a sizeable proportion of shoppers will aim to have their alcohol purchases made with some time to spare this Christmas, there will be just over 3 in 10 (31%) who claim they will leave their purchase of alcohol until a week before Christmas, with almost half of this group (15%) leaving their alcohol purchasing until a few days before Christmas, and indeed until Christmas Eve itself. Those aged 25-34 (25%) years old are most likely to wait until closer to Christmas to make their alcohol purchases.
Alcohol purchased for Christmas varies in range, with a high degree of purchase evident across the different types of alcohol. Almost 7 in 10 (68%) who will buy alcohol this Christmas, will buy wine, with red wine marginally more popular than white this Christmas. Lager (51%) and spirits (44%) also recorded significant levels of purchase intention. More celebratory and seasonal drinks are also prevalent with 3 in 10 (30%) claiming they will purchase sparkling wine, while 1 in 10 (10%) will be buying Champagne and 1 in 8 (13%) buying port, with 7% claiming they will purchase non-alcoholic beer this Christmas.
Purchase behaviour over the festive period points to bulk buying to some degree with almost half (49%) of alcohol buyers claiming they will buy enough alcohol to get past New Year’s Day, with just under a third (32%) claiming they will purchase enough to get them to New Year’s Eve, with the lowest proportion (19%) claiming they will only buy enough to get them through to St. Stephen’s Day.
For further information and more in-depth analysis on consumer’s alcohol purchasing and consumption behaviour at Christmas time, please contact Robbie Clarke at Empathy Research. [email protected]
© 2018 Checkout – your source for the latest Irish retail news. Article by Aidan O’Sullivan. Click subscribe to sign up for the Checkout print edition.
