Brits have been busy shopping, so much so that they’ve bought enough kettles to brew nearly 70,000 cups of tea – that’s according to research conducted by online electricals retailer, AO.
To wrap up the end of a busy Black Friday, AO has conducted a deep dive looking at the latest shopper trends over the year to date.
Overall, 2024 has seen a large increase of shoppers being more eco-conscious as Brits felt the pinch from the cost-of-living crisis earlier. This has led to consumers valuing energy efficiency higher than ever, with heat pump tumble dryers among appliances making a real difference.
Since the year’s weather has been in no meagre terms, rubbish, the need for a good, energy-efficient tumble dryer has been greater than ever. In fact, research into this years’ sale stats has revealed that they’ve sold enough tumble dryers to help families dry almost 14 million loads of washing during the torrid weather.
It appears Brits have also had enough of washing the dirty dishes by hand, as AO further revealed it sold enough dishwashers to save 1.59 million litres of water from handwashing.
Not only that, but the ever-increasing popularity of air fryers continued this year, with the retailer selling enough air fryers to save Brits more than 285,000 minutes of time compared to oven cooking. This growing popularity of air fryers has not waned, with many Brits looking to reduce their energy bills and cooking time.
Many shoppers are also looking for health and beauty appliances with sales up 224%, with electric toothbrushes, hair dryers and hot air stylers proving most popular.
Key events in 2024 included the Euros, Olympics and Paralympics, which featured heavily across a rainy ‘Summer of Sport’. This led to increased spending on the latest TVs with AO providing enough tellies to watch more than 110,940 minutes of the football action.
Nick Small, category buyer at AO.com, reflected on customer spending habits over the past year. He said: “2024 has had a summer dominated by sport and autumn weather sprinkled throughout the year. This has meant shoppers have been keen to snap up deals on TVs and tumble dryers alike while air fryers sales continued to thrive like last year. Energy-efficiency links each of these appliances together and shows where shoppers’ priorities are when hunting for bargains.”
