Best Christmas Shopping Day

EXPERTS PREDICT A BIG WEDNESDAY

2.59pm on 21 December – dubbed ‘Extreme Wednesday’ – will be the best time to bag a Christmas bargain online.

Experts say that savvy shoppers who are willing to leave their online shopping until the eleventh-hour will benefit from the cheapest Christmas this year despite the headline-grabbing phenomena of ‘Black Friday’ and Cyber Monday.’

The research − conducted by Skuuudle, a provider of competitive intelligence and price automation services – has found that those prepared to wait for the ‘last click saloon’ will find retailers’ prices at their very lowest. Prices on higher margin products, such as clothes, could plummet by up to 30 per cent and electrical items could fall by up to 15 per cent for those shoppers who will risk going to the wire.

Andrew Senior, CEO of Skuuudle, commented: "Consumers are very reluctant to leave Christmas shopping until the last minute as they’re gambling with delivery deadlines and retailers’ Christmas chaos. Gone are the days when the sales didn’t start until January − we’ve seen prices plummet in the past few weeks and expect that they will hit a low on Wednesday."

He added: "Retailers can struggle to keep prices in line with competitors, with thousands of prices on products continually changing at this time of year.  It’s a very important time for companies and they need to keep their pricing strategies competitive in order to reap the festive rewards."

Skuuudle gathers competitive data on millions of branded products and provides online retailers, distributors, manufacturers and market research companies with pricing information. This then enables companies to refine and enhance their pricing strategies.