Londoners 'more likely to donate unwanted Christmas gifts than sell them online'

Londoners who receive unwanted Christmas presents are more likely to give them away than sell or return them, research has found.

Just three per cent of Londoners have sold gifts they did not want online, the poll found.

Another three per cent returned them and just one per cent chose to exchange them.

A total of 71 per cent of Londoners gave unwanted gifts to friends and family and a generous 62 per cent donated them to charity.

The research, but the Charities Aid Foundation, found more than 5.2 million people in London have received unwanted Christmas presents in the past.

Clothes, toiletries, toys and jewellery are among the most common items to be given to charity shops.

John Low, chief executive of CAF, said: “The festive season is a time when people are tremendously generous to each other and giving is in the forefront of our minds.

“Charities can really benefit at Christmas as so many of us try and find valuable uses for well-intentioned gifts which might not quite hit the spot.

“It is wonderful that people are thinking about the wider community and making the best of that woolly jumper which will never be worn.”