Xmas shoppers in £600 mil overspend?

With eleven days to go until Christmas Day, new research from online bank Egg finds that Britain's last minute Christmas shoppers could be looking at a £594 million overspend.

This year nearly 4 million shoppers will leave all of their Christmas shopping until the week before Christmas and this last minute panic buying will result in them spending more than they intended to.

According to the Egg poll, the last minute shopper spends 39% more than they budgeted. So, with the average Christmas gift bill totalling £385, according to Deloitte's annual Christmas retail survey, this could mean an extra £150 per late shopper, bringing their bill up to £535.

Furthermore, the 800,000 shoppers who are planning to wait until Christmas Eve to buy their presents are 4 times more likely to buy an unsuitable gift than those who have shopped even 2-3 weeks ahead. But strangely, their budgets might fare slightly better than those who shopped earlier in the week with a Christmas Eve shopper experiencing a 25% overspend, or £96 based on an average present bill of £385.

With 1 in 10 Brits being described as a really late shopper it appears women are as guilty as men. And regionally the streets to avoid in the week before Christmas are in London, where 16% of shoppers go for the panic buy, closely followed by the North West (14%).