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Summer shoppers faced with warm-up to Christmas rush

Thursday, July 11, 2013 - 09:27 by Simon Crisp

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Although Christmas is still months away, plenty of people will already be planning their gift lists and working out appropriate budgets to get them through the festive season.

The Evening Standard reported this week that Amazon is just one of the major retailers offering safe shopping online that is already gearing up to the end of year sales period, during which millions of people will spend billions of pounds at top e-commerce outlets.

There are even predictions over which products are likely to be particularly popular in 2013, chief amongst which is the iRobot Roomba.

Costing a fraction under  500, this is an almost entirely autonomous vacuum cleaner that can be left to automatically carry out the cleaning, even if you are not in the room or the country.

Experts are also tipping the appropriately named Tea Maker as being a big hit this year. It is basically a  200 machine that is designed to create the perfect cup of tea, allowing users to make miniscule adjustments to strength and temperature.

In a nation of tea drinkers, it is easy to see why this could sell well via safe shopping online over the next few months.

For kids, the attention could be focused on Teksta, which is a robotic dog that costs  60 and comes with a bone and a ball. While that may sound expensive for a single toy, it is a lot cheaper than a real dog and therefore might be preferable for some parents.

Amazon's eagerness to start talking about Christmas over 160 days before the actual event is clearly related to the fact that this period generates the most significant slice of its annual sales in the UK and it will want to get customers thinking about making purchases as early as possible.