"Figures released by analytics firm Kantar show 449,000 consumers bought their Christmas pudding in September - a 76 per cent rise on last year." ~ Daily Mail
Even on such a small relative sample, that's significant. It seems that online grocery shopping remains more or less in line year on year. As the article says (referring to September 2020 and September 2021):
"while the proportion of groceries bought online was up 12.4% over the same period, compared with a 12.2% rise in September and following seven months of declines" ~ Daily Mail
Ever curious, I wondered what the search trends could tell us about this. For example: do people search for new ways to buy their Christmas puddings online, and do the search trends reflect the 76% increase in sales reported in the Kantar study?
Christmas Pudding Search Trends
The quick answer is, er, no. Online searches are about 12% down when comparing the two periods (September 2020 vs September 2021) indexed on a maximum value occurring in December 2020 as seen in Figure 1.
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| Figure 1 - Christmas Pudding Searches 1/9/20 to 30/9/21 ~ Google Trends |
In case you were thinking that online searches were perhaps lagging behind the sales data, widening the search to include trends up to the first week of November 2021 retains that deficit when compared with the same period in 2020.
The conclusion? People know where to buy their Christmas Pudding, be it online or in their local grocery store. They're not trying to find new suppliers, and, possibly, they're not quite panicking. Yet.
It's much the same story for Christmas Cake, too, as shown in Figure 2.
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| Figure 2 - Christmas Cake Searches 1/9/20 to 1/11/21 ~ Google Trends |
If you draw a line across the graph in Figure 2, through 24/10/2020 and 24/11/2021, there's a gradient representing a drop of around 12%. Spooky. It's also a gentler rise than in 2020, suggesting perhaps that in 2021, people know where to get their cake as well as their pudding.
Christmas Cake vs Christmas Pudding Search Trends
For those curious as to who is winning the Pudding vs Cake war, Figure X shows the two comparative trend lines.
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| Figure 3 - Christmas Cake vs Christmas Pudding Searches 1/9/20 to 1/11/21 ~ Google Trends |
When the area under the graph in Figure 3 is calculated, Christmas Cake has about twice as much as Christmas Pudding, at least for the period referenced. Again, people aren't looking for more cake this year than they were last.
So, if you're thinking of breaking into the online Christmas cake and/or pudding space this year, maybe it's not the best business idea ever.
Christmas Cake Recipe Trends
Another popular hobby at this time of year is baking. Series 11 of The Great British Bake Off ran from September to November last year and is currently underway this year (2021). Perhaps people are baking their puddings and cakes? Spoiler alert: not so much.
Let's first take a look at the recipe trends compared with general searches for Christmas Cake and Pudding. The result is in Figure 4.
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| Figure 4 - Christmas Cake vs Pudding vs Recipe Searches 1/9/20 to 1/11/21 ~ Google Trends |
A tenuous reading of Figure 4 might suggest that people are pretty keen on baking their cake right up until mid-November, during which time searches increase along the same lines as Christmas Puddings, and then they sort of give up.
The green line shows the trends for Christmas Pudding recipe searches. That one never really gets started until people seem to panic around 20-26 December when general Christmas Pudding searches also peak - a sudden interest in making a pudding that can't be found in the shops, perhaps?
As an aside, The Great British Bake Off started in 2010, but search trends seem to indicate that it hasn't had the effect on Christmas Cake and Christmas Pudding recipe searches that its general popularity might suggest (see Figure 5).
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| Figure 5 - Christmas Cake vs Pudding vs Recipe Searches since 2009 ~ Google Trends |
It's anecdotal evidence, at best, but if you look at the yellow line for Christmas Cake Recipe and compare it to the blue line for Christmas Cake, there is evidence of a slight push upwards. However, the yellow line itself exhibits only a modest increase (avg. +1.73) with the exception of 2012 - 2013 (+6) and 2019 - 2020 (+11).
As I was running the numbers for Figure 5, I also noticed that the Christmas Cake peak is usually in December, when the Christmas Cake Recipe peak is in November. It's almost as if people give it a go, then take one look at the results and search for alternatives...
For completeness: the variance for the recipe query is 1.73 for an average index of 18, which is 9.6%, whereas, for the straight-up cake query, that rises to 6.73 on an index averaging 63, or 10.7%. Read into that what you will.
My own opinion is that, despite a strengthening interest in Christmas Cake recipes, it's probably not enough to make a business around. Pity, that, because I rather liked the idea. But, if it hits that 50% trend marker in Figure 4, I'll reconsider my advice - if half the Christmas Cake market is looking for recipes online, then maybe there's money in the market. At the current 25% level, it's going to be a little hit or miss.
A final note: the AdWords spending in this market is in the 15p - £1 range across variations of Christmas, cake, pudding and recipe, including single word variations like pudding, and cake, not to mention cake recipe and pudding recipe.
For me, that's an indication that despite relatively high volumes (cake: 100K - 1M, everything else in the 100K band, except pudding recipe in the 10K band), the money just isn't there to be had. Otherwise, people would be spending on advertising.
Comments, as always, are welcome, in the section below, as well as any direct questions, offers of work, etc. I filter the thread so I can pick those out rather than let them get published!
