Christmas hampers

There are two main hamper providers: Chrisco and Good Guys Xmas Club (not to be confused with the Australian retailer of the same name).

How they work

You select a hamper from the company's catalogue and arrange for a regular direct debit or automatic payment to pay for it.

Hampers are delivered from November to mid December (except for their Back to School hampers which are delivered in late January). The companies say their costs include picking, packing and delivery of the hampers.

We compared the cost of two hampers with buying the equivalent goods from a supermarket:

Guide to the table
We shopped at Woolworths Online in January 2011 for items listed in the hampers and then compared the overall prices. Christmas tarts were not available when we shopped, so we obtained their pre-Christmas 2010 prices directly from Woolworths. (a) = $10.53 per week for 39 weeks. (b) = $22.31 per week for 39 weeks. Woolworths Online includes delivery fee of $8.25.

Upside

• The payments force you to save.
• The goods are conveniently delivered to your home.
• You avoid the Christmas hassle of crowded supermarkets.

Downside

• It's an expensive way to buy groceries.
• You may not want all the items in the hamper.
• You have to find storage space for a lot of items arriving at once, possibly several weeks before Christmas. There are 48 different items in the Chrisco hamper we surveyed – and a whopping 91 in The Good Guys' one (including large amounts of meat).

Bottom line

Christmas hampers are convenient if you have the storage space but they're not cheap.

Hamper cancellation fees

Chrisco gives you a 21-day cooling-off period to change your mind about your order. After that, if you can't keep up with the payments the company will supply a smaller hamper. Asking for a refund comes with a hefty administration fee. Up till 3 months before the delivery date, it’s 20 percent of what you've paid in. After that, it's 50 percent.

Chrisco is being prosecuted by the Commerce Commission for possible breaches of the Fair Trading Act over whether these cancellation fees were disclosed adequately to customers before they signed up, and also whether they’re a reasonable charge to cover the cost of the lay-by.

In contrast, Good Guys Xmas Club calculates fees individually, depending on the time of cancellation and any selling costs incurred at that point (this includes costs such as administration, salaries, and the price of any hamper items already purchased pre-cancellation).