Christmas shopping to peak online on December 1 with bricks and mortar spending peaking on December 13

HAVE you budgeted for Christmas spending yet? Commonwealth Bank had done it for you and its forecast is pretty scary.

CHRISTMAS spending is set to cost each Australian an extra $1079 next month.

Research released today by the Commonwealth Bank forecasts people will spend $7.6 billion on gifts and $4.6 billion on holidays between December 1 and January 6.

Online shopping will peak on December 1 while bricks and mortar retailers will have their busiest day on December 13, the bank’s survey of more than 1000 people has found.

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It says our Christmas spending splurge will be slightly down on last year, when it was $1116 per person, but this is at odds with last week’s projections from the Australian Retailers Association that painted a more positive picture.

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Commonwealth Bank economist Diana Mousina said consumers had been sending mixed signals in recent weeks, and spending on gifts was likely to drop slightly while vacation spending increased.

She said there were still more negative consumers than positive consumers.

“The majority of people are concerned that the unemployment rate will keep going up,” she said.

Ms Mousina said more than six million consumers were expected to do some online Christmas shopping in early December, but “most people still expect to shop at bricks and mortar stores”.

The bank forecasts shoppers will spend $5.5 billion buying gifts in stores and $2.1 billion online.

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Australian Retailers Association executive director Russell Zimmerman said the bulk of online Christmas shopping would be with local retailers.

“We are seeing more and more retailers get into the online space, so it’s not an issue of them and us. It’s part of retail,” he said.

Mr Zimmerman said spending in the pre-Christmas period, which starts around mid-November, was expected to be 4.3 per cent higher than a year ago at about $45 billion, driven by improved confidence, natural price increases and a growing population.

“That would be the best figure we have seen for the last five years,” he said.

will Christmas cheer extent to retailers ... Eight-year-old Darcy callanan meets Santa at David Jones’ Bourke Street store in Melbourne. Picture: Andrew Batsch