Ahead of New Year, one of the most favorite holidays, many people turn into wizards and play the roles of Father Frost and Snow Maiden, making dreams of their relatives and friends come true.

Sberbank and the IT company OFD Platform have analyzed Russians’ spending on December 15–31, 2019 and presented the Father Frost and Snow Maiden indexes for the first time to show financial expenses of men and women ahead of New Year.

The Father Frost index was 41.7 points in 2019 climbing steadily since 2017; the Snow Maiden index stood at 38.9 points. When taking into account all consumer categories and average daily spending, it was 39.5% higher on December 25–31 than in the first three weeks of the month. That’s why the analysts took the last week into consideration to compile the indexes.

Two thirds of men and women’s spending before New Year accounted for gifts, such as beauty products, household appliances and devices, toys, jewelry, and gym memberships.

Average Fathers Frost and Snow Maidens spent RUB10,800 and RUB8,438 on gifts, respectively. One might call these the ruble equivalents of the Father Frost and Snow Maiden indexes.

The average order value with men was 28% higher than women’s AOV.

Snow Maidens started to prepare for holidays 3–4 days earlier than Fathers Frost. Women started to actively buy household appliances, beauty products and jewelry on December 19–20.

Men would generally hold off shopping until the last several days of the year. One week before New Year, they start spending money at kids clothing stores more actively; men also preferred to buy gym memberships for the next year in advance. As of December 31, men spent 7.5% on flowers in December 2019. Snow Maidens looked for gifts in traditionally men’s categories such as sports equipment and men’s clothes (the maximum daily spending was 6.4% and 6.5%, respectively).

Consumer spending