It’s September and I just said it, the C word, Christmas! I received some information about the results of a poll that the shopping search engine Shopzillacarried out which is quite scary reading and I thought I would share it with you. Shopzilla surveyed 1,000 6-12 year old children to find out what they were hoping to get for Christmas and it seems they are expecting a lot! The top findings of the survey state that:
- Kids are expecting high priced items such as laptops (bear in mind these are primary school children).
- They anticipate that £167 average will be spent on each of them (generally boys expect more money to be spent than girls).
- Most of them admitted they could not remember what they got last year and no longer play with last years gifts.
- Electronic pets, computers and digital cameras are on the most wanted list.
What is really sad is that kids say that Christmas is like a competition at school to see who gets the best presents according to 56% of them. I have experienced that to some extent with my son coming home demanding an i-pad and saying that so and so in his class got one. Needless to say he still has not got one!
Strangely electronic pets are becoming more popular than real pets and have come higher on the wish list than real puppies. Interestingly girls are more likely to want a real pet than a boys, they came number seven in the girls top ten list but did not appear in the boys top ten list at all. Top of the list we see high value items like Laptops, digital cameras and iPads, suggesting that kids are not aware of the real cost of these items. It certainly shows how much of a consumer society we have become and that we are placing more emphasis on giving our children things rather than spending time with them.
Neil McCarthy, Sales and Marketing Director at Shopzilla said: “Interactive gifts and costly electronics top our survey of most-wanted presents for kids this Christmas. With such demand for so many high-value items, Santa might be shopping online to get the best price and avoid the queues this year.”
Top Christmas toys, based on a survey for Shopzilla of 1,000 6-12 year-olds in the UK during August 2011
| 1. iPad or laptop or tablet |
26.9% |
| 2. Digital camera |
8.30% |
| 3. Electronic pet incl Zhu Zhu puppies and teacup piggies |
8.20% |
| 4. Nintendo 3DS |
8.20% |
| 5. Games console or Computer/console games (eg Wii) |
7.60% |
| 6. Cars 2 toy |
5.80% |
| 7. Lego |
4.30% |
| 8. Mobile phone/iPhone/Blackberry |
4.30% |
| 9. A pet (a real pet not a toy!) |
3.60% |
| 10. Moshi Monsters |
2.00% |
| 11. Money to spend |
1.60% |
| 12. Transformers |
1.50% |
| 13. DVDs |
1.40% |
| 14. Clothes or shoes |
1.40% |
| 15. There’s nothing I want, I have everything I want already |
1.40% |
| 16. Barbie/Sindy/girl band doll (eg The Saturdays) |
1.30% |
| 17. Toy gun (eg Nerf) |
1.00% |
| 18. Sylvanian Families Ambulance |
0.70% |
| 19. Ride in Dalek |
0.70% |
| 20. Disney Princess Kitchen |
0.70% |
| 21. Rock On Elmo |
0.60% |
| 22. CDs |
0.60% |
| 23. iTunes voucher or other downloads |
0.50% |
| 24. Chocolate and sweets |
0.50% |
| 25. Smokey the Fire Truck |
0.30% |
| 26. Moon Dough Magic Zoo |
0.30% |
| 27. Hexbugs |
0.30% |
| 28. Spyros Adventure toy |
0.30% |
| 29. Dance Star Mickey |
0.30% |
| 30. I don’t celebrate Christmas |
0.30% |
| 31. Iball3 |
0.20% |
| 32 Monopoly Electronic Banking |
0.20% |
4.7% chose ‘other’ rather than one of the gifts listed above including 0.9% who want a bike or scooter.
I was pleased to see that some traditional toys still made it onto the list, like lego, and was also intrigued to see that a ride on a dalek was in there which shows that imagination is still alive!
If you want to search Shopzilla you can find them here: www.shopzilla.co.uk
