A poll conducted by the marketing lab of the University of Macedonia revealed that food and clothes were the main Christmas purchases amongst those surveyed, with 15 % of participants saying they didn’t buy anything, citing as main reasons a lack of money (43%), lack of time (23%), lack of need (20%) and crowd congestion in stores (7%).
In terms of money spent ahead of Christmas, 76% of those polled said they spent up to 200 euros, 20% said they spent from 201-500 euros and the remaining 4 % spent more than 501 euros.
For New Year’s Day, 73% said they would buy presents but the vast majority (92%) said they’d spent less than 200 euros.
The data comes as no surprise given Greece’s economic woes which is reflected quite poignantly in the data revealing the majority of Greeks spent their money mainly on food and clothing items during the festive season with only 11% of participants spent 30% on toys.
Specifically, 54% of respondents said they spent 15-30 % of their money on food, while 40% spent 30-60% of their money on clothes and shoes.
MARLAB’s poll was conducted through social media in the period between Dec. 27 and Dec. 30. It was based on 195 people of whom 27 percent were men and 73 percent were women. Divided by age, 57 percent of respondents said they were 18-24 years old, 26 percent were 25-35 years old, 13 percent were 36-50 years old and the rest 4 percent were older than 51.