Online Sinterklaas purchases near €1.3 billion; up 35 pct.

Sinterklaas spent nearly 1.3 billion euros shopping online for gifts this year. That is an increase of 35 percent compared to the online spending around the Sinterklaas celebrations last year, according to a study by PostNL and Thuiswinkel.org, AD reports

"Between 1 November and 5 December, the average weekly turnover is over 250 million euros", according to the researchers. "For the total Sinterklaas period the turnover comes down to 1.26 billion euros. That means an increase of 35 percent compared to the only sales of 933 million euros in the same period in 2015".

Another interesting observation from the research is that more and more consumers are using their cell phones to make purchases. "Sinterklaas is moving with the times and is doing his shopping increasingly wit the mobile phone", Wijnand Jongen of Thuiswinkel.org said, according to NOS. "Our research show that in the Sinterklaas period about 12 percent of online purchases were made with a smartphone, almost twice as much as last year."

Popular book gifts this year include the new Harry Potter book, books by Astrid Holleeder and Jochem Myjer and the Thomas Dekker biography. The most bought toys are drones, Lego Star Wars and Kapla wooden toys.

Earlier this week PostNL announced that it expects to deliver over 5 million parcels for Sinterklaas this year, a record number.