Sales are hotting-up ahead of Save the Children’s annual Christmas Jumper Day – set to take place on Friday 12th December – as research has found that the charity’s official retail partner, Asda, has fallen behind rival Matalan in meeting consumer demand for festive knitwear.
A simple glance down the high street tells the nation that the Christmas Jumper is more popular than ever, and according to OneHydra, provider of cloud-based, search automation technology, consumer searches for ‘novelty Christmas jumpers’ have increased 235 per cent since October 2014, while searches for ‘rude Christmas jumpers’ have leapt 662 per cent in the same period.
The figures led Tanya Steele, executive director of fundraising at Save the Children, to anticipate that this year will be the biggest Christmas Jumper Day yet.
“We had over a million people take part last year and we want to see even more jumpers being worn this year. As with every campaign, partners play a huge role and we are thrilled that George at Asda is our official retail partner. They have produced an amazing jumper range and stores across the UK will help us reach a huge audience and raise vital funds,” she said.
However, over a third (35 per cent) of retailers have not reprioritised their site for seasonal keywords.
Warren Cowan, CEO, OneHydra, explained: “Consumers are searching for low cost, humorous jumpers that they wear once and then throw to the back of the wardrobe. The retailers who are responding to consumer demand best will have analysed their data, spotted the trends and optimised their sites.”
The research found that Matalan is showing to be the out on top for meeting the increased demand for Christmas jumpers, ahead of official partner Asda.
Next, Asos and Boohoo followed respectively.
OneHydra analysed over fourteen million keywords and ranked the keywords in terms of SEO visibility from October – December 2014.
It was also estimated that search for Christmas jumpers will further increase by 234 per cent from November to December 2014.
