Fidget spinners, Princess Charlotte and avocados - what got us spending money in 2017

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Fidget spinners, Princess Charlotte and avocados all played a significant role in influencing consumer spending in the UK this year.

Here is a breakdown, month by month, of the top sellers and events that encouraged shoppers to part with their money.

January

The movie La La Land led to a peak in searches for "yellow" on the John Lewis website as customers took style inspiration from actress Emma Stone.

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Healthy-eating manuals and fitness DVDs once again topped sales at Amazon. The most popular as the year progressed were Lean In 15 - The Shift Plan by Joe Wicks, Tom Kerridge's Dopamine Diet and The 8-Week Blood Sugar Diet and The Clever Guts Diet, both by Michael Mosley, dominating best-seller charts.

February

Prince Harry's then girlfriend and now fiancee Meghan Markle sports a Barbour jacket and Hunter wellies in London. Barbour coats are the most popular womenswear item of the year for John Lewis.

Despite being released more than three years ago, animated Disney classic Frozen dominates eBay's Disney ranking for the third successive year. The 2013 blockbuster sold three related items every minute in February and outsold the rest of the top five Disney films combined, leaving the likes of Toy Story and Alice In Wonderland out in the cold.

March

BBC Two's The Great Pottery Throw Down reaches its climax, with sales of ceramic bowls at John Lewis increasing 33%.

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The UK release of Disney's Beauty And The Beast sparks 37,383 searches for Primark's Chip purse, an item inspired by the film, making it the most wanted fashion accessory on eBay this year.

World Book Day saw parents forking out more than £386,000 on costumes via eBay for their children. Harry Potter continued to work his magic with more than 40,000 searches on the site in the lead up to the event.

April

Fidget spinners become a national obsession. Theresa May calls a General Election, which may or may not coincide with John Lewis seeing a rise in sales of the relaxation-inducing gadgets.

Ebay shoppers also went crazy for the toy, with 21.7 million searches over the year peaking in April at 70 a second.

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As the weather began to warm up, eBay also saw a 42% increase in sales of garden gnomes with 20 sold per day.

May

An international avocado shortage leads to wholesale prices of avocados in the UK surging more than 50% as harvests failed. Despite the shortage, John Lewis sold 40% more avocado tools this year than last.

Princess Charlotte turns two, when an official picture of the youngest Royal in a pale yellow Fair Isle cardigan from John Lewis leads to it selling out.

The cardigan was the most popular searched-for royal outfit in the last 12 months on eBay, the site later reports.

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On the day, it sparked a 900% increase in the number of people searching for the royal toddler's clothes on the online auction site, followed by three searches an hour for the item across the whole month.

The Duchess of Cambridge's understated peach Alexander McQueen ensemble she wore to her sister Pippa's wedding generates a 200% increase in searches for Kate's clothes on eBay.

June

Following a rainy start to the month, the nation enjoyed some of its highest temperatures in June since 1976, with fan searches spiralling by 900%.

Shoppers sent sales of online pool inflatables - particularly those in the style of donuts, flamingos and watermelons - soaring.

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The iPhone celebrated its 10-year anniversary in June and eBay saw sales of the smartphone eclipse the £1 billion mark. The releases of the iPhone X and 8 later in the year sparked further excitement with more than five million items sold in three months - nearly one every second.

The General Election takes place and gin sales rise by 9% on the year before at John Lewis.

July

Sales of Camelbak water bottles, which featured in the show Love Island, rose by 40%. Meanwhile, the latest Instagram craze, the #Shelfie, where books and objets d'art are hashtagged on social media, prompted an 11% increase in sales of bookcases at John Lewis.

Princess Charlotte once again causes a fashion stir as the Liberty print smock dress she wears on a Royal European tour prompts a peak in eBay searches.

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Selfridges opens its Christmas store at its flagship Oxford Street location as the temperature outside reaches a balmy 22C (71.6F).

August

The Great British Bake Off returns under new management, and as John Lewis customers replicated the sweet treats seen on the show, sales of cookie cutters and cupcake tools rose by 50% and 85% compared to last year.

Cake tin searches on eBay double in the first week of August in the run up to the show. As Britons basked in a heatwave, oven temperatures soared too as searches for KitchenAid on the site more than tripled this month.

September

It's back to work for many, but sales of matching jackets and skirts are down 10% at John Lewis as the traditional office suit for women appears to be heading out of fashion.

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Some 28% of Britons claim to have their Christmas shopping all wrapped up by the end of the month, eBay finds.

October

Britons splash out for Halloween, with the ever-increasing spending on costumes and decorations leading to environmental campaigners pleading with consumers to re-use instead of bin last year's outfit.

The average consumer is expected to spend £23 on Halloween-related sweets and food, decorations and costumes, up 5% on last year, according to a survey for Royal Mail.

November

Black Friday and Cyber Monday follow a fortnight of heavy discounting, but UK consumers still spend more money over the days between the two events than in any other weekend of the year.

December

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Star Wars: The Last Jedi is released and eBay reports that the Stormtrooper costume has been the subject of searches on the auction site more than 20 times every hour since 2015, while the marketplace has sold one lightsaber in the UK every 15 minutes in the last year alone.

Britons bought a record 47 million bottles of gin over the last year, up by seven million on 2016, as consumers named the G&T their favourite drink, the Wine and Spirit Trade Association reports.

Marks & Spencer stocks a headline-grabbing stoneless avocado.

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