Almost everyone loves a luxury Christmas Hamper. They are baskets full of goodies that many of us will not purchase in our everyday lives. But, some hampers will cost you massively more than their actual contents. The finance experts at Money.co.uk have exposed which ones have the largest markups, and the results are quite surprising.
Luxury Christmas Hampers come in all shapes and sizes. Some can cost you as much a decent family holiday or a nice second-hand car whist others are what we would class as being more realistically priced. One thing they all share is a hidden cost, and this is the mark-up put on the basket as a whole when compared to the total cost of the individual items.
Firstly, we shouldn’t begrudge a business making money, and most would agree that anything up to a 20% profit is fair. But, when one of the high streets most loved brands are found to be marking up the items by three times more than this, that’s a step too far.
Christmas 2020 comes at the end of a year like no other in living memory. Unemployment is rising, we’ve bid farewell to some of the country’s best-loved high street businesses, and the UK debt has increased massively. At some point in the near future, we will all be expected to dig into our pockets to help out, and this is one reason why we shouldn’t be paying way over the odds for anything.
If you asked almost everyone in the country, would they want to give away hundreds if not thousands of pounds for absolutely no reason, the answer will almost certainly be a definitive no. However, the data contained within the Money.co.uk Christmas Hamper Index shows that in some cases you will be.
Their finance experts have looked at some of the luxurious Christmas hampers offered by some of the most renowned retail brand’s and found that in some cases shoppers are passing massively more for a single hamper when compared to buying the contents separately.
Who’s on the luxury Christmas Hamper Naughty List?
Their research found the Christmas Hamper with the biggest mark up in percentile terms is none other than M&S. Their mark up when compared to what’s inside the hamper is a whopping 62.50%! The £750 M&S hamper costs £750, yet the total value of what’s inside is just £461.44. If you opted to buy the items yourself and put them in your own box or hamper, you’d be saving yourself more than £280!
Another prominent high street name joining M&S on the ‘Naughty list’ is John Lewis. Their luxury hamper retails at £1000, but the 39 items inside which if bought individually would cost you £656.19.
Also on the ‘Naughty list’ is the most famous luxury department store in the world, Harrods. Their luxury Christmas hamper will set you back £5,000 and contains items amounting to just £3,726.77 which means you’re paying £1,273.23 more than if you bought the items separately.
Finally, we have the Selfridges luxury hamper which is priced the same as the Harrods Hamper (£5,000) and contains items worth £3,304.05 if purchased separately. The Selfridges luxury Christmas Hamper is a prime example of why you should consider making a hamper yourselves. After all, you’d save yourself a colossal £1,695.95 by buying the hamper contents separately in Selfridges and have some fun in the process.
Who made it onto the luxury Christmas Hamper Nice List?
Not every well-known name is ‘pulling the tinsel over your eyes’. For example, Fortnum & Masons wicker hamper which is admittedly out of reach for most mere mortals price-wise (£6,000) has a markup of just 10.2%, a much more palatable number. Although their hamper will cost you £6,000, there is £5,444.68 worth of goods inside.
The research from Money.co.uk did come as a bit of a shock to me and some of my colleagues. Obviously, businesses are expected to add a markup, but as the above shows, there are reasonable markups, and then there’s just ‘taking the Mickey’. Given the current financial climate; my advice is to embrace the world of DIY. Unless your bank account is overflowing with funds and you have zero time to do something, add a bit of festive spirit, thought and fun to your lives and go out and make one yourself! – Paul Godbold.
You can see the full Money.co.uk Christmas Hampers Index here.
Read more festive-themed guides and articles in our lifestyle section here.
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