Christmas Gift of the Year, in different countries?

[Verbose]

An out of curiosity thread:

The Swedish Board of Trade has this feature where they since 1988 has been listing The Christman Gift of the Year.

I assume something similar is done elsewhere. Do you good people know what the gadget for 2007 is where you are at?

The Swedish 2007 installment looks like this:

That's a GPS receiver, in case anyone wonders

The backlist looks as follows:
1988 - Baking machine
1989 - Video camera
1990 - Wok
1991 - CD player
1992 - Tv-games
1993 - Perfume
1994 - Cell/mobile phone
1995 - Music CD
1996 - Internet-connection packet deals
1997 - Elektronic pets, like the Tamagotchi
1998 - Computer games
1999 - Books, in particular the Bible (historic, new translation into Swedish that year, making it an event)
2000 - Dvd-player
2001 - Tools
2002 - Cookery-books (lowered VAT on books that year, a whole slew of new TV-chefs, and a public discussion about the degeneration of standards of cooking)
2003 - Caps, hats, head-wear in general
2004 - Flat screen TV
2005 - Pokerset
2006 - Audio-book
2007 - GPS-reciever

How much of that is part of international trends?

 

[Kennigit]

I don't think the US has something similar to this, but of course magazines and so forth have their "lists". The free marketronpaul decides the gift of the year.

 

[Verbose]

I don't think the US has something similar to this, but of course magazines and so forth have their "lists". The free marketronpaul decides the gift of the year.

That's precisely how it works in Sweden as well. We're you assuming Sweden isn't a free market society? Amazing, if so.

These things are more like the discerned "flavour of the year". The call as to what becomes regarded as the gift of the year isn't purely made based upon sale statistics, but also on media hype and novelty though. It's done by the Swedish Retail Institute, which operates as a consulting resource for business.
http://www.hui.se/

I would have imagined a similar form of bean-counter scrutiny of tendencies in the Christmas sales to be made elsewhere, but maybe that's a mistaken assumption. I'd be a bit surprised if that was the case though. Everyone is interested in what sells, what not, and what different customer segments think they want and what they actually buy.

I'm mostly curious as to what extent these trend-items are international or not.

 

[Swedishguy]

Why would any sane person want to buy that?

 

[woody60707]

wait, it's in miles per hr?

do thy use miles in Sweden?

edit: oh wait, it's just any type of GPS, not that one type in the pic.

 

[warpus]

GPS handhelds are cool, but they do mess up from time to time.

We used one to get to the North Carolina outer banks from Sarnia, Ontario.. and it ended up taking us to a ferry that was closed, instead of a much more convenient bridge.. costing us 2 hours and a bit of our sanity.

As far as the gift of the year in Canada goes, it differs from magazine to magazine and from talk show to talk show.. As far as I'm concerned it'll likely be guitar hero, though.

 

[Swedishguy]

wait, it's in miles per hr?

do thy use miles in Sweden?

In Sweden, one mile is ten kilometers.

 

[GuitarHero]

Personally, I don't give a damn about the Holidays.

 

[dosed150]

i think it'll probably be the nintendo wii again theyll probably sell bunch of ds lite's as well