• £330 million ‘Boomerang Booty’ to be returned to shops
• Growth in “swap-a-holics” expected in 2009

December 29, 2008 - Britain will be waking up with face-ache over the Christmas period after millions of us (74%) feigned delight yesterday at a present we really don’t want! That’s according to research from TalkTalk (www.talktalk.co.uk), the home phone and broadband company.

Indeed, despite the credit crunch, Britain managed to squander an estimated £2.2bn this festive season on presents that are unwanted or will go unused by their recipients – setting the average cost of unwanted pressies at some £65.56 each.

Some £330m worth of these unwanted Christmas presents – or ‘boomerang booty’ – will start their short journey back to the shops today, either to be cashed in or swapped for something for more suitable. But with only 15% of us having the pluck to ask the gift giver for a receipt, a wasteful 39% of unwanted presents will be left on the shelf to gather dust – representing £858m worth of presents.

Swap Shop
However, with the credit crunch at large not everyone is willing to let their presents go to waste. 1.7 million people will cunningly avoid any potential embarrassment with the gift giver by swapping £110 million’s worth of unwanted presents with someone else.

And swapping seems set to be a burgeoning trend in 2009 with 5.5 million swap-a-holics (12%) admitting to swapping some £694m worth of items with others in 2008 and a further 11m (24%) planning to swap items in the New Year.

Legendary SwapShop present Keith Chegwin commented: “Most of us are so polite that we would much rather feign delight at a pressie, than let on that we’re disappointed. So, swapping presents with someone else makes a great way of making sure you get something you want, and getting rid of something you don’t want, without offending anyone. I'm thrilled to hear that a growing number of Britons have started to revive the whole SwapShop ethic that we started back in 1976, and that many more are planning to 'swap til they drop' in 2009.”

Mark Schmid from TalkTalk said: “Getting a jumper that's not your colour can be a pain but getting stuck with the wrong phone and broadband service is a long-term and commonly-held frustration. At TalkTalk our philosophy is only to give people what they want by letting them swap or stop certain services as and when they want to. With myTalkTalk our customers can choose the parts of their broadband package that suit them – and change them again if they find their circumstances change, without being tied into lengthy contracts.”

Top 10 most often unwanted presents

Type of present            Percentage of people who received an unwanted gift in this category
 
Clothes               19%
 
Cosmetics            9%
 
Books               8%
 
Home accessories         8%
 
CD/DVD               7%
 
Perfume               7%
 
Motoring accessories         5%
 
Food items            5%
 
Cleaning items            4%
 
Electrical goods         3%