By Chris Lee

Britons plan to spend an average of £378 on gifts this Christmas, according to a survey from high street bank, HSBC. Along with the joy of giving and receiving comes the inevitable unwanted Christmas presents - ties, jumpers, socks and the like – pretty much money down the drain.

NMK caught up with a new online Christmas shopping service which launched this autumn with a view to wiping out those unwanted presents for good. My List is Here is a new wish list founded by ex-BBC producer Amanda Colpoys, which claims to combine social media with shopping. Users invite friends and family to compile a wish list from more than 500,000 products across 300-plus high street and online stores and then the user buy the gift they want from that list. Participating high street stores include Debenhams, Play.com, Gap and Vodafone.

The site claims it simplifies the Christmas shopping experience and guarantees that people receive decent presents. Likewise, users can create their own wish list and share that with friends and family.

Santa gone social

Colpoys told NMK that MyListisHere.com is “a Santa letter gone social”, and that it fits perfectly into a mature e-commerce and social media culture.

“One of the hardest aspects of Christmas shopping is simply knowing what to buy for everyone so offering a platform to create and share gift lists seemed like the perfect answer to the problem,” she said. “Sharing and the social networking element is what makes us unique. Rather than having to search for each wish list separately via a name or email address, as is the case with sites like Amazon, users can simply flick through their gallery of family and friends to view and purchase from their wish lists. Sharing content over social networks is practically second nature to consumers now and so the social aspect felt like a perfect addition to our wish list service.”

To get involved, users log-in using their Facebook, Twitter, Hotmail, Yahoo or Google account, then invite other people in the same way they would on a social network. There is a Friend Finder tool so they can locate family and friends already on the site, or send out invites to those not registered.

The new shopping

Colpoys explained that My List Is Here enables users to search by store name or product category. The site also features a ‘Wish Widget’, which sits in user bookmarks folder and can be used to add products to wish lists at any time. My List is Here is not just for Christmas, but also runs new baby and wedding options.

“Shopping has always been an inherently social activity in Britain, with families or groups of men or women going shopping together. By contrast shopping online tends to happen in isolation,” she said. “We plan to enable people both to comment on items on one another's wish lists and to recommend items to one another; by allowing people to share and seek advice on what they purchase, we will bring the traditionally social element of shopping online."