Call them shopaholics or what you will. But, more than 90 per cent of Hong Kong people are willing to spend hundreds up to HK$3,000 each for Christmas presents this year, said a survey.

In late November, local chemist chain stores Watsons conducted a survey over 600 local consumers on their spending habit during Christmas.

Sixty per cent of respondents said they would spend HK$501 to HK$3,000 on Christmas presents. Thirty-three per cent said they would spend HK$500 or below.

As 73 per cent of respondents have a monthly salary of HK$10,000 to HK$20,000, the amount the respondents are going to spend takes a relatively high percentage of their income.

Although local consumers are ready to spend in Christmas, 66 per cent of respondents will do Christmas shopping when products are on sale.

Price is a major consideration for them when selecting Christmas presents (24 per cent) among other considerations like quality (19 per cent) and practicality (17 per cent).

The survey also shows Hong Kong people tend to choose seasonal presents for Christmas.

The most popular type of presents chosen by the respondents is conventional Christmas confectionery gift sets like candy and chocolate with holiday flavour (25 per cent).

Winter apparel is also a favourite choice, as 17 per cent of respondents will buy scarves, gloves and accessories.

Fourteen per cent of respondents will shop for cosmetics, fragrance and personal care gifts.

On choosing at most two priority recipients of Christmas presents, 20 per cent of respondents chose parents and the elderly as first priority. Colleagues and classmates (16 per cent) and friends (15 per cent) come second and third respectively.

Surprisingly, boyfriends and girlfriends ranked only fourth on the list - 14 per cent.

Sam Aston, Operations Director of Watsons said that the festive season was more popular among young customers in the age group of 18 to 30.

"In recent two years we see a growing trend in Christmas spending in this age group. The trend is more clearly seen among female customers, who account for over 60 per cent of our customers."

The female customers are ready to choose Christmas presents for their loved ones.

"Our statistics from operation tells us more than 30 per cent of female customers have the habit of buying personal care products," Sam said.

Mainland tourists were more interested in buying health and cosmetics products, and he expected 10 to 15 per cent of customers during Christmas would be from mainland.

However, he did not see evidence that there would be more customers from mainland than last year, and local customers would remain the main source of growth in sales.

Christmas would be the busiest shopping period for their customers together with Chinese New Year.

He was confident that they would get a double-digit sales growth in Christmas products than last year.

Editor: Donald