Christmas present resale: an increasing trend

Christmas presents resale: an increasing trend

Over the past ten years, the reselling of Christmas presents has increased significantly in France. A market study for Ebay.fr, carried out by the market study consultant TNS-Sofers, showed that in 2011, an estimated 10% of French people would be ready to sell their presents back on the Internet. That figure for regular internet users is as high as 47%. In other words choosing well is important.

The same study also reveals that the peak in reselling presents is reached on 23^rd of January and corresponds to the timing of the second markdown in the French January sales. Thus friends see a golden opportunity to earn money after Christmas to buy themselves a better present. Concerning people attitudes towards the trend, the major features which comes out is that people who use auction websites are more likely to sell their presents back, especially men –more cyber-freaks and less scrupulous regarding manners.

An anti-crisis remedy

There are two main reasons for the trend. The first directly concerns the present’s nature. People may either not like it or already have it. This is especially the case when the present is one of the Christmas ‘best-sellers’.

As well as being a way to buy themselves another present, this trend also constitutes a way to cope up with the challenges of the current economic circumstances. According to the survey, 2008 was a milestone within the present sellback tendency. During that year in which the crisis was at its peak, 47% of internet users declared they were ready to sell their present back in order to cover daily expenditure and 20% of them to cover the additional costs that Christmas brought on.

A lucrative market

Ebay, Amazon Marketplace, Priceminister, Le Bon Coin or 2xmoinscher; as many websites which greatly benefited from that trend.

With 4 billion “Christmas-present-resellers” recorded last year, it is obvious that more and more websites are waiting for the post-Christmas craze. This is all the more interesting as this figure has doubled over the past five years. Moreover, some websites –such as Priceminister or 2xmoinscher- reported an increase by 35% in their audience ratings on the afternoon of the 25^th December. As the more people visit their page, the more these websites can make money on the sales, reselling Christmas presents is quite a lucrative operation.

However, it is interesting to note that only 15% of the French confess to their relatives they sold their presents back. According to Dominique Desjeux, an anthropologist teaching at the University of Paris, admitting the resale of ones Christmas present is more difficult when it is from a close friend or a family member.

So, if a friend or family member doesn’t open their present, it could mean they intend to sell it back online. In other words, you could be well-advised this year to offer a voucher and so free choice to your relatives if you don’t want to find your CD, DVD, scarf or jumper has been sold back online a few hours after the traditional present opening ceremony.

Benjamin Guillet-Revol