Spending data from AIB has shown that men appear to leave a lot of their Christmas shopping until the last minute, and are likely to dash to the shops over lunch on the day before Christmas Eve.
The busiest hour for in-store shopping by men was between 12pm and 1pm on December 23rd last year, spending €5.6 million in that hour alone.
The AIB Christmas spend trend also revealed that its customers spent €3.8 billion in store and online in December of 2023.
The data was compiled from over 78 million card transactions carried out by AIB customers in store and online during December 2023.
€121 million was spent in shops on December 22nd alone, which was 130 per cent higher than the average day last year, making it the busiest day of the year for in store shopping, with 2.9 million transactions.
The busiest time of the year for spending in store was between 3pm and 4pm on December 22nd , with almost €12 million spent in that hour alone.
For pubs, the busiest day of the holiday season was December 23rd, with €6.3 million spent in total by AIB customers.
In the week before Christmas 2023, 65 per cent of the spend in pubs was by men.
December 23rd was also the busiest day of the year for grocery shopping in store, with spending 66 per cent higher than the previous Saturday in 2023. In store spending on groceries that day was around €42 million.
Despite the rise in online shopping, people are still choosing to do their Christmas grocery shop in store. 93 per cent of grocery spend was in store compared to seven per cent online.
Gender spending trends
In the week leading up to Christmas 2023, men spent almost twice as much on jewellery as women.
When men purchased jewellery, the average transaction was €216, for women it was €110. Almost two thirds of spend on jewellery that week was by men.
Spend in toy and hobby shops in December 2023 was 178 per cent above the monthly average for the whole of 2023, and was split relatively evenly between men and women (52 per cent women, 48 per cent men).
People from Meath spent the most on their cards in store and online in the week before Christmas December 2023 (€661) followed by Kildare (€655) and Wicklow (€653). People from Donegal spent the least (€537) followed by Louth (€580) and Leitrim (€582).
Head of Consumer at AIB, Adrian Moynihan, said “Men appear to leave a lot of their shopping until the last minute, over lunch on the day before Christmas Eve.
"And retailers can plan for a very busy 22nd and 23rd December, with almost six million transactions in shops over these two days in 2023.
"It’s great to see people shopping in store as it not only supports Irish businesses and jobs, it also ensures that the products we buy have a lower carbon footprint as they aren’t traveling hundreds of kilometres before reaching us.”
