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Research
How Often Do People Buy Jigsaw Puzzles?
The short answer
A returning puzzler buys roughly every three to four months. Across six years of our own sales the median gap between one order and the next is 108 days, and measured per person rather than per order it is 142 days, so three to four purchases a year is the honest middle. But the spread is enormous: a quarter of repeat orders come within 39 days and a quarter are more than 287 days apart. The bigger finding is that buying is not triggered by finishing. Somebody who buys a much larger pile than usual comes back on almost exactly their normal schedule, which means most puzzlers are buying ahead of what they can build.
We could not find this written down anywhere, so we worked it out ourselves. How often does someone who buys jigsaw puzzles actually buy one? We went back through six years of our own orders to find out. The interval turned out to be the least interesting part of the answer.
What we found
- Typical gap between orders
- 108 days, about three and a half months
- Measured per person
- 142 days, closer to four and a half months
- The quick quarter
- Back within 39 days
- The slow quarter
- More than 287 days
- Fastest tenth vs slowest tenth
- A tenfold difference in buying rate
- Effect of buying a bigger pile
- Almost none. About 6% longer, not double
On this page
The number, and why the average is the wrong one
Among customers who have bought from us more than once, the median gap between one order and the next is 108 days. Call it three and a half months, or three to four purchases a year.
We deliberately quote the median rather than the mean. The mean is 223 days, and it is misleading, because the distribution has a very long tail of people who come back after a year or two. One person returning after three years drags an average around in a way it does not drag the middle.
There are two honest versions of this number and they answer slightly different questions.
| What you are asking | Answer |
|---|---|
| Typical gap between any two orders | 108 days |
| Typical gap for a typical person | 142 days |
The second is higher because it gives someone with twenty orders the same weight as someone with two, rather than letting the most frequent buyers dominate. If you want one number for "how often does a puzzler buy", 142 days is the fairer one. If you want to know what the next order in the queue looks like, 108 is closer.
There is no typical puzzler
The middle is easy to quote and slightly dishonest on its own, because the spread around it is enormous.
| Share of repeat orders | Gap to the previous order |
|---|---|
| 20% | Within 30 days |
| 35% | Within 60 days |
| 46% | Within 90 days |
| 63% | Within 180 days |
| 19% | More than a year |
Turn that into a rate and the range is even starker. Working out an implied puzzles-per-month for each repeat customer, the busiest tenth buy at more than ten times the rate of the quietest tenth. The middle sits at roughly two thirds of a puzzle a month, about eight a year, but that middle describes very few actual people.
If you have ever wondered whether you buy too many puzzles, the honest answer from our data is that there is no normal to be outside of. The distribution is wide enough that almost any rate has plenty of company.
The finding we did not expect
Here is the part that changed how we think about this.
The obvious model is consumption. You buy a puzzle, you build it, you need another one. If that were right, order size should predict the gap. Buy three puzzles and you should take roughly three times as long to come back as someone who bought one.
It does not work like that.
Our first look suggested something close to that model might hold, because people who buy bigger orders do tend to have slightly longer gaps. But that comparison is between different people, and different people build at wildly different speeds. Someone who buys six at a time may simply be someone who gets through six quickly.
So we ran it within the same person, comparing each order against that customer's own usual basket, and the gap that followed against their own usual gap. That holds building speed constant, because it is the same household with the same table and the same amount of spare time.
| Order size vs their own usual | Gap that followed, vs their own usual | What consumption would require |
|---|---|---|
| Half or less | 0.99x | 0.5x or less |
| About usual | 1.00x | 1.0x |
| A bit above | 1.00x | About 1.5x |
| Double or more | 1.08x | 2.0x or more |
Buying double your normal pile buys you about 6% more time, not double. Statistically the effect is real but it is commercially and practically almost nothing.
People are not, in the main, buying because they ran out.
Why buying and building come apart
The explanation that fits is one most puzzlers will recognise immediately: the stash.
If you keep a queue of unbuilt boxes in a cupboard, then finishing one does not create a need, because the queue already covers it. What makes you buy is seeing something you want. The purchase is triggered by the puzzle, not by the empty shelf.
That fits two other things we can see. It fits the enormous spread in buying rates, because a stash can absorb almost any amount of enthusiasm. And it fits our earlier finding that a puzzle design's commercial life is measured in years rather than seasons: if people bought only to replace, demand for any one design would burn out quickly. It does not.
Why I went looking, and what I got wrong
I went into this expecting a tidy consumption story. I have a background in behavioural finance and I still reached for the neat model first, which is a good reminder that the neat model is usually the one to test hardest.
My own working theory, once the first result came in, was that fast puzzlers buy bigger piles and that this was cancelling the effect out. The data agreed that people differ enormously, it just would not let me claim that was the reason, because the effect vanishes even when you hold one person's speed constant. That is a better answer than the one I wanted.
It also changed how we write to customers. We do not send emails asking whether you have finished your puzzle, because the evidence says that is not what brings anyone back.
What this study cannot tell you
- It is our customers, not all puzzlers. People who buy from a specialist shop are more committed than the average person picking up a box at a department store. Read every number here as describing an engaged puzzler.
- It measures buying, not building. We know when a puzzle leaves us. We do not know when, or whether, it got built. The stash is our reading of the evidence, not something we have watched happen.
- Anyone using a second email address counts as two people. That splits some real repeat buyers apart, so the intervals here are, if anything, slightly overstated.
- Gaps still open have not been counted. Someone who bought last month and will return next year is not yet in the data, so these figures describe completed intervals.
We will rerun this every year. The interesting question now is not the interval, it is whether the stash effect holds as steadily as it appears to.
Something worth adding to the pile
Shop Back in Stock
Designs that sold out and that we chose to buy again, all on a shelf in Sydney. If the stash is what drives the next purchase, this is the shelf worth browsing.
Related reading
- How long does a puzzle design stay popular?, the companion study, and the reason the stash matters commercially
- The Complete Guide to Puzzle Piece Counts, which decides how long one puzzle occupies your table
- How long does a 1000 piece puzzle take?, the building side of the same question
- 1000 piece puzzles, the standard adult format
- The Puzzle Library, every guide we have written
Common questions
How often does the average person buy a jigsaw puzzle?
Among people who buy more than once, our own sales show a median gap of 108 days between orders, about three and a half months. Measured per person rather than per order it is 142 days. So three to four purchases a year is a fair middle. The average is dragged much higher by a long tail of people who return after a year or more, which is why we quote the median.
How many jigsaw puzzles does a puzzler get through in a year?
The middle of our range works out at roughly two thirds of a puzzle a month, so about eight a year. That number hides more than it shows. The busiest tenth of our repeat customers buy at more than ten times the rate of the quietest tenth, so there is no such thing as a typical puzzler in any useful sense.
Do people buy another puzzle as soon as they finish one?
The data says no, and this genuinely surprised us. If people bought to replace what they had built, someone buying three puzzles should take about three times as long to come back as someone buying one. Tested within the same person, so their building speed is held constant, a much bigger than usual order is followed by a gap only about 6% longer than their usual. Buying and building are close to independent.
Is it normal to have unopened puzzles at home?
Completely normal, and our data suggests it is the majority behaviour rather than the exception. If buying were paced by finishing, order size would predict the gap to the next order. It barely does. The most consistent explanation is that most puzzlers keep a queue of unbuilt boxes and buy when something appeals rather than when a shelf runs empty.
How long do people take between their first and second puzzle order?
Longer than between later ones, and the first repeat is the one that most often never happens. For those who do come back, the second order typically lands within about three months. After that, people settle into their own rhythm and it becomes fairly stable.
Why does this vary so much between people?
Because building speed varies enormously, and so does what a puzzle is for. Someone doing a 500 piece puzzle over a weekend and someone working through a 2000 over six weeks are both normal. Add gift buying, collecting a series, and seasonal patterns, and the spread you would expect is exactly the spread we see.
Sources and further reading
- Premium Puzzles first-party data. All Shopify orders from store opening in 2020 to 9 August 2026, joined to customer records. Intervals measured between consecutive orders by the same customer. Method, corrections and limitations described in the article.
- Related: our study of how long a puzzle design stays commercially alive, using the same order history
Last reviewed and updated 10 August 2026 by Michael, Owner, Premium Puzzles. We keep this page current as the range and the market change, rather than letting it age as a dated post.
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