The economics of Christmas trees

[comoatoupeira]

Please reply with

• area of the UK
• height of your tree
• how much did it cost
• how much profit you reckon they made 😂

AIBU we are being had?

How on earth are people supposed to estimate profit? Also profit at which step of the process? Are we talking about the retail sale, a distributor, or the actual farmer?

all good questions!

Also worth specifying if you mean real or artificial trees, or both?

They’ve planted, grown and chopped down a real live tree, and you think you’re being ripped off?
(I can’t answer your question anyway, because I always just used the same Woolworths fake tree I’ve used since 1997.)

Midlands 10ft £90

7ft artificial tree £39. It's a decent tree so I'm very happy with what I paid. Bought it boxing Day 2 years ago.

Never had a real tree.

6ft m&s tree
2008 purchase
cant remember what we paif
no idea what profit m&s made
this feels weirdly pointless tbh
i don’t think we were “had” but maybe OP can tell me?

West midlands, 7ft ish. £62

7ft, south east, £70.

From a Christmas tree farm. And they cut the end bit of the trunk off before you take it home which saves me listening to my husband swear while he goes at it with a blunt hacksaw for an hour. (Garden centre no longer does this because of health and safety).

No idea of profit but I feel I've got a bargain.

Real tree. Over 5 foot tall. £13.99. north west England. Aldi. No idea on profit!

It's a nice tree, doesn't look cheap..

Balsalm hill fake tree, about £140 in 2009.

South Midlands
7 foot
£180 but I paid £114 due to discounts
Its pre lit and from M&S but I’m not sure how I’m meant to work out the profit but it felt decent value for money?

Well, I work in a plant nursery, so I have some sense of it (not perfect!).

We're in North Yorkshire. Where I work, a tree at 200-250cms costs £65. Our mark up is usually 2.2, which is industry standard, and a bargain when you consider how many hours of work it takes to unload trees, tidy them up, set them onto a base, and so on.

We also sell trees we have grown, and we price per foot. I don't know the prices for this year yet, but they are generally competitive.

It is not easy to grow a good Christmas tree. We put a lot of work into them.

The best Christmas tree scheme I ever saw was in San Francisco - the parks department will let you hire a potted sapling (may be any kind of tree, not a conifer), which they then plant out after Christmas. The money raised goes to park projects. I thought it was a really nice way to do things.

Live 5ft tree in a pot, (roughly) three weeks rental at £100 which includes delivery to the door and collection again in January so it can go back outside with the other trees. Bargain.

Edit: London

6ft artificial bought for £24.99 in the sales 20 years ago. Not a bad investment and it’s quite good as far as artificial ones go.

8ft artificial, bought 1991

South Wales
7 foot
£60

Presuming you mean real - North West, 7ft £58 including a wooden base. They’ve not gone up in the past 4-5 years.

7ft tree NE England £48 including delivery.

It seems very cheap to me considering it’s had to be grown, harvested and delivered.

I’ve debated moving to an artificial one as they seem to last for ages (brother’s is more than 10 and still looking great) but feel like on the whole the real ones are probably a bit nicer and a bit better environment wise (at least when locally sourced). Once kids are bigger we may switch to a painted branch and save a small fortune 😂

7.5 foot, Homebase, £58, east mids.

We live in the South West. Get ours fresh cut from a Christmas tree farm. Like we go walk in the field and pick the tree and the man goes to get his chainsaw. Probably 7ft (Dh is 6’5 and it’s taller than him). It’s £20. All the trees are £20. Except last year we got to talking to the guy about how dh’s grandad used to have a Christmas tree farm and he was so tickled that he’d only take a fiver for it. Wouldn’t go anywhere else.

These figures are pre pandemic averages but there is a long time between planting and income, figures from British Tree Growers Association in my agricultural budgeting book!

Birmingham.
2ft.
Sainsbury's potted.
£12.99.

We have a toddler, so that's our tree for the next three years until he's a bit more sane.

We don't have a tree because we feel sorry for the real ones, have no room to plant a potted up one and won't buy a plastic one.