Where and how do you find inspiration for Christmas present ideas when you’re still sporting your holiday tan and sorting out your photo album?
Each year, we are forced to start our Christmas shopping earlier by a variety of factors;
- Supermarket shelves start filling up with Christmas lights, chocolates and stocking fillers as soon as the children go back to school, even before Halloween items have made an appearance.
- Your hairdresser asks you to make your Christmas appointment during your visit in early September.
- Your local butcher has replaced his BBQ order book for his turkey order book.
- Great Aunt Nora is asking what your children want for Christmas – they’ve only just come back off their summer holidays! Christmas seems a long way off for them!
- Adverts appear on TV showing happy families playing with the latest gadgets surrounded by lots of snow!
- Hotels and restaurants banners are everywhere advertising Christmas parties and Christmas day meals – and there’s limited places!
And it’s only September!!!
So what’s the easiest and most reliable way to source top Christmas gifts for 2010?
The quickest way without a doubt is the internet, but you need to be careful who you are buying from. On the run up to Christmas, a number of rogue websites make an appearance, their only aim to grab your money and run without delivering anything to your door!
However, with a careful bit of checking, you can make all your x-mas present purchases in one place and avoid the crush of Christmas shoppers!
Top tips on where to buy great Christmas gifts:
If you need inspiration for that perfect Christmas present, search on Google for “top Christmas gifts” or similar terms.
Click through to a few websites on the first couple of pages to get a feel for what is on offer. If the product you click on takes you through to a reputable website such as Amazon, you know you’re probably in safe hands.
Look for websites that offer x-mas present ideas for all the family and make as many purchases as you can from the same website, saving on postage costs.
Sometimes less is more – the more on offer, the more difficult the choice. Whilst you want plenty of choice, you don’t want to spend longer going through each page on a website than you would if you went to the local shopping centre.
If your child wants that popular Christmas toy that’s on every child’s Christmas wish list, enter the specific toy in Google e.g. “Jet Pack Buzz Lightyear.”
This will narrow down your search considerably and then it’s more a question of who has got the item in stock. Don’t hang around – grab that toy while you can!
If you need inspiration for top kids toys this Christmas, visit the Toy Retailers Association The Toy Retailers Association produces its Dream Toys list each October (27th for 2010). This is the toy retail industry’s authoritative body who reveal their top Christmas toy predictions for this year based on 50 years on consumer knowledge and tracking the latest trends. Retailers then go into a frenzy as they try to stock up to meet expected demand.
Christmas shopping should be fun, whichever month you do it in!
The best tip is to jump on the band wagon and get your Christmas shopping done early and then sit back and watch all the Christmas adverts, content in the knowledge you’re done and dusted for another year!
Happy Shopping!