Present squeezing goes online

The days of feeling presents under the tree or rummaging through cupboards has been replaced with virtual snooping as almost one in four admit to checking websites to see what their partner has bought them. A further one in three feels unnecessarily shamed by the simplicity of buying online and will pretend their purchases were made on the high street. Webtrends research into online shopping habits has revealed some fascinating insights in to those tirelessly researching prices and doing all they can to stretch the family budgets; and the downright dishonest 'cheaters', doing all they can to find out what their partner has got them for Christmas so they do not end up looking less generous. Action points for retailers
Conrad Bennett, senior director of technical services EMEA at Webtrends believes while the research confirms some fun points about how cheeky habits of squeezing presents under the tree has now gone virtual, there are some serious points for retailers to address. 'Retailers definitely need to look at allowing people to register a purchase as a gift, not just for wrapping options, but also to let customers hide purchases behind a log-in,' he says. 'Once a gift is identified, retailers can ensure the item does not appear on the screen and can only be viewed if someone has the order number. They may also want to consider offering advice on how to clear the computer's browsing history so shoppers can feel confident their purchases are protected from prying eyes.' One in four are 'Christmas cheaters'
Many internet users will need to have practised their surprised look of gratitude when they open their Christmas presents this year because a quarter of us admit trying to find out what our partner has bought. Now let's be clear, this is not poor unfortunates who have accidentally discovered through the likes of a 'recently viewed' window what they have waiting for them under the Christmas tree. In fact, that figure is just 15 per cent of the population. The quarter of people who admit to being Christmas cheats readily reveal they will go out of their way to try to discover what their partner has purchased for them. The statistics reveal the most likely cheaters are unmarried men who live with a partner, particularly in London. Married men and women, and those living in the north of England and Scotland are less likely to be cyber snoops looking to spoil the surprise on Christmas day. (Welsh married women are statistically speaking, the most honest!) To be precise, 37 per cent of Londoners will actively seek out what they have been bought, whereas people in East Anglia as well as the Yorkshire area are only half as likely to (15 per cent and 16 per cent). So, why are a quarter of us, particularly London males, prone to cheating?
Psychologist Dr Amelia Wise, founder of Bloom Psychology, believes that neither gender is more naturally curious than the other but unmarried men are more likely to be concerned about buying the right gift for their partner. 'The finding suggests men are less confident in their judgement of what is an appropriate gift for their partner, be this in terms of the type of gift or the cost of the gift, so in order to buy an appropriate gift they need to do this elicit 'research' to help them out,' she says. 'In terms of deciding what to spend on a gift for a partner, there are likely to be conscious or subconscious expectations by each partner as to what is acceptable for the other to spend on them.  This is likely to be based on factors such as income, past precedents, and perhaps gender. For instance, it may be that if each partner earns an equal salary then an equal sacrifice by each partner is expected, perhaps in more traditional scenarios the man would be expected to spend more on his wife than she spends on him.' Five top tips and some good news for retailers
Behind all the skulduggery of checking 'recently viewed' panes and scouring through history folders and email notifications of purchases, Christmas cheats are at least revealing several positive facts for retailers. Four out of five are due to spend at least as much, if not more, this festive season on their loved one and the vast majority of people find it perfectly acceptable to shop online -- two out of three even go so far as to deem online Amazon vouchers a suitable present for a loved one. Now that online shopping has been so widely accepted only one in three of those people buying gifts during work feel they have to do so on the sly. Clearly, online shopping is accepted as the norm. In fact, even the most serious Christmas cheats can be put down to people -- particularly London males living with a female partner -- being concerned they buy an appropriate gift and parents looking to save cash by buying on eBay yet pretending the presents came from the high street. Colette Wade is marketing director at Webtrends.