The Choosi Clutter Report 2017

The festive season has long been an occasion that draws families together. Australians love nothing more than enjoying quality time over a meal and expressing their love for one another over gift giving. However, Australians are a generous bunch and have tendencies to take it too far, becoming overzealous with their gift giving which often results as excess clutter in the household.

The Choosi Clutter Report is the latest edition in the Choosi research series, exploring the issues surrounding the clutter that the festive season can create, along with what Australians are doing with their excess presents this season.

Santa has deep pockets

“It’s better to give than to receive” as the saying goes, and Aussies are certainly putting their money where their mouths are. The average Australian household spends $963 on gifts during the festive season each year.

With so much money spent on presents, it’s expected that there are a few underwhelming presents sitting under the tree and in rather startling revelation, Australians have revealed that they receive $620 worth of unwanted gifts each year. Across the nation this equates to $4.4 billion worth of socks, undies and disappointed children.

Did you keep the receipt?

Aussies are selling their unwanted gifts instead of facing the excruciating awkwardness of asking their loved one for the receipt, estimating they resell $346 worth of items over the year. Australians are becoming thriftier as they estimate an average of $218 worth of unwanted presents are re-gifted, meaning that perfect present you received may have been bought by the giver’s loved one.

Australians also estimate an average of $185 worth of items become unwanted clutter that plagues the household, while $120 worth of items are simply thrown away. However, not all goes to waste with one in five (19.5%) Australians selflessly agreeing that instead of buying presents for one another, they prefer to give to charity.

Combating the clutter

While it’s undoubtedly a good feeling to give a present to a loved one, the majority of Australians agree that buying Christmas/festive season gifts is a waste of their hard-earned dollars (65.9%). That feeling of joy when giving a gift is often replaced with obligation, as over half of Australians (57.8%) admit they feel that it’s compulsory to buy presents for family members.

In a bid to reduce clutter following the festive season, gifting presents can often be restricted, as one-third (35.2%) of Australians admit their household agree to only give gifts to immediate family members. A further three in ten (30.7%) Australians say they fight clutter by giving gifts to children only.

Other clutter-preventing tactics implemented by Australian households include agreeing to a limit on spending or the number of gifts (26.1%) while some families take it one step further and give no presents at all (19.5%).

While there are several tactical ways to stop the spread of clutter this festive season, there is nothing better than the feeling of giving. Whichever way you choose to battle the post-Christmas clutter, Choosi will continue to keep an eye on this topic as well as other areas of interest in upcoming reports.

Stay tuned for the next chapter in our Choosi research series.