Late night shopping bliss.

According to a (serious) report by BarclayCard, “One in three Brits now spends more money shopping online at night, compared to five years ago”. Whether it’s your weekly supermarket shop, a last-minute birthday gift from Amazon Prime or a browse on your fave online boutique for that perfect coat, the virtual marketplace has all our shopping needs covered. Increasingly, same-day delivery is becoming the norm for retailers from Argos to Net A Porter (the sight of whose sleek black vans zooming round town driven by handsomely tailored drivers to fulfill fashion emergencies is probably the best advertising a brand can buy). And with the customer experience being constantly streamlined, it’s never been a swifter, easier journey from “add to basket” to “your order is complete”.

To incentivize this new bedtime bubble in the market, many online retailers are now putting out special offers and discounts late in the day, and even running tie-in “events” to coincide with popular TV shows that people might be watching while they shop (think buying cake tins during Bake Off). If you run a retail business, this is where to look for your next sales boost: nocturnal shoppers spend 42 minutes extra per week browsing in the small hours once the clocks go back, with 10:18pm cited as the peak time to purchase”.

And if you’re wondering how your late-night shopping habits compare to the rest of the nation’s, here are the top five items bought at night according to BarclayCard:

1. clothes
2. gifts
3. pizza
4. groceries
5. chinese food

Well what else is there to do before bed? Read? Meditate? Have a conversation with a human being? Well yes, but with the daylight hours nowadays so busy with work and family commitments, it’s no surprise we are choosing to shop after dark. Just remember, kids: don’t drink and buy.


Photo by Yux Xiang on Unsplash.