When to Order Christmas Food and Hampers in Australia
By Vicki Richards, National Customer Manager at The Gourmet Pantry.
Order Christmas hampers and shelf-stable Christmas food from late October to the end of November. Bon bons and Christmas confectionery go earliest, so buy those first. Corporate orders run earlier again, from October. Leave only the fresh things, the ham, the seafood and the fruit, for December. The common mistake is treating the whole shop as one December job.
Two shopping seasons, six weeks apart
A Christmas shop is not one event. It is two, and they run on clocks that barely overlap. Corporate orders move first: businesses start asking in October, sign off in early November, and want everything delivered before the office winds down, which makes the middle of November the busiest stretch of the corporate season. Household orders peak a month later, in the fortnight before Christmas, once people have finally worked out who is coming to lunch.
If you are buying for your own household, that gap is worth using. Through October and early November the range is complete, nothing has sold through, and you can see everything side by side. By the second week of December you are choosing from what is left. It shows up most clearly in Christmas hampers, where the mid-range boxes are the first to start looking picked over.
Ordering early does not make it cheaper. What it buys is choice: something you picked, rather than something that happened to still be there. Free shipping on orders over $100 applies in October exactly as it does in December, and our Christmas range goes up well before most people are ready to look at it.
What runs out, and roughly when
The order of it is fairly predictable, because it follows how the packaging is made rather than how good the food is.
Bon bons go first. They are a decoration as much as a treat, so people buy them while they are still thinking about the table rather than the menu, and a design that sells through rarely gets a second run inside the same season. Christmas bon bons run from $19.95 for the petite sets up to $59.95 for the deluxe boxes, and the classics thin out first. The Mistletoe & Merry Crackertoa Traditional at $39.95 is one of the designs people come back for. If you want a particular pattern, buy it in the first half of November.
Christmas-branded confectionery follows, for the same reason. The Pimlico 15 Way Xmas Treats box at $31, the gingerbread house kits, anything printed with a Santa or an elf: it is a one-season line, and December stock is whatever November did not take.
Hampers behave differently. The range stays on the site all season, so nothing disappears outright, but the busiest price points get thin from late November. A Gourmet Bites Hamper at $59.95 is the same box in December as it is in October. The only question is whether it is still there when you go to buy the fourth one for the fourth cousin.
A shopping calendar you can work to
This is a calendar of ordering windows, not delivery cutoffs. Australia Post confirms its Christmas dates in October, and until it does, treat mid-December as the practical limit for anything that has to travel. Everything below is about when the thing you want is still there to buy.
| When | What to order | Why then |
|---|---|---|
| October | Corporate hampers, plus bon bons if you have a specific design in mind | The full range is up and the corporate rush has not started |
| Early November | Bon bons, crackers, Christmas confectionery, gift sets | Seasonal print runs are at their fullest |
| Mid to late November | Hampers going interstate, and gifts for teachers, neighbours and staff | Everything is in stock and the post is not yet under strain |
| Early December | Hampers for people you will see in person, plus crackers, condiments and shelf-stable food for the table | Still comfortable, but the popular hampers are thinning |
| Mid December | Anything you can hand over yourself | The practical limit for posted gifts, pending the Australia Post dates |
| Christmas week | Ham, seafood, fresh fruit, bread | These come from a butcher, fishmonger and greengrocer, and they are better bought late |
Read the last row first. We do not sell ham, seafood or anything that needs a cold chain, and that is deliberate. The centrepiece is a local purchase and it should stay one. What we sell is the half of the table that keeps, which is the half you can buy in October and forget about: crackers, condiments, shortbread, chocolate, pastry cases and gift hampers all sit in a cupboard for two months.
Sending interstate changes the maths
If the hamper is going to your mother in Perth rather than under your own tree, move every line in that table forward by a week. Not because freight is slower than it says, but because a missing unit number, an old address or nobody home costs you days you do not have in December.
Orders placed before 12pm on a weekday leave our Corio warehouse the same day, hand-packed rather than pulled off a shelf, and shipping is free Australia-wide on orders over $100. What we do not offer, and what nobody sending interstate should plan around, is same-day delivery. The box still has to cross the country. Our guide to sending a Christmas hamper interstate covers addressing, timing and what happens when the recipient is out.
Businesses work to a different date, and it is a commercial one rather than a postal one: Early Bird Special, order before 19 November: A FREE bottle of G.H.Mumm Champagne for every $1,000 of hampers ordered. PLUS 10% off orders of 10+ hampers. After that the corporate Christmas hampers range is still open and still ships, and we have set out what changes for business orders after 19 November.
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When to order Christmas food: common questions
When should I order Christmas hampers in Australia?
Late October to late November for anything being posted, and early December if you are handing it over yourself. Corporate orders are best placed in October or early November, because that is when the business season peaks. The last fortnight before Christmas is when the popular hampers thin out, so the earlier you order, the more of the range you are actually choosing from.
How early can you order Christmas food online?
As soon as the seasonal range goes up, which is usually early October. Shelf-stable Christmas food keeps for months: crackers, chocolate, shortbread, condiments, pastry cases and anything tinned or jarred will sit in a cupboard until December without complaint. Check the best-before date on anything you are buying in bulk, and leave fresh food for the last week.
Do Christmas hampers and bon bons sell out?
Bon bons do, reliably. Seasonal packaging is printed for one year, and once a design sells through it usually does not return until the following season. Hampers are more forgiving, because the range stays live all season, but the busiest price points get thin through December. If a specific design matters to you, November is the safe month.
The short version: if it has Christmas printed on the packaging, buy it in the first half of November. If it is going to someone else's address, buy it before the end of November. If it is fresh, buy it the week of. When you are ready, our best selling hampers show where most people land, and the full Christmas hampers range is there when you want something more specific.