The £865 million UK price tag of 'sale shopping fails'

Brits hell bent on bagging a sale bargain ended up wasting a huge £865 million over the last year on botched sales purchases they later regretted, finds MoneySuperMarket.

Research from the comparison site shows a quarter of people (27 per cent) who shopped in the sales over the past 12 months regretted buying one of the items. The main reasons for shoppers’ remorse are snapping up cheap goods on impulse and purchasing things that never get used.

It also found that 72 per cent of Brits were swept up in sale fever over the last year, and on average spent around £197 each when shopping, or a whopping £7 billion collectively. However, we each regretted £53 of that spend on average, or £865 million in total.

More of the findings:

Men splashed the most cash during the sales, spending an average of £212 during the last 12 months, compared to females who spent £185.

18 to 34-year olds were revealed to be the most remorseful for buying useless items, with 41 per cent regretting a sale purchase over the last year.

Welsh sale shoppers are least likely to get buyers’ remorse, with only 17 per cent of them admitting to it, compared to 34 per cent of those from the West Midlands.

Dan Plant, consumer finance expert at MoneySuperMarket commented: “It’s all too easy to be blinded by the perceived bargains when shopping in the sea of red sale signs, but Brits need to try and keep some perspective about which deals are crackers, and which ones are duds.

“The Boxing Day and January sales are just around the corner and consumers should think twice before they make impulse buys that they might later regret. Splashing out on things you don’t need or won’t use is a waste at the best of times – but wasting cash right after the high spend festive period just to say you’ve bagged a bargain could be really painful during January’s annual financial gloom.

“It’s easy though to minimise the pain from any seasonal splurge. Take some time between mince pies and mulled wine to check your bank statement to see where your hard-earned cash is going each month. Then switch your credit cards, savings accounts and more to give your finances a boost. MoneySuperMarket has great products on offer, not just in a January sale, but all year round to help enable significant savings.”