Chief Industry Officer with the Australian Retailers Association (ARA), Fleur Brown, said there were encouraging signs for the retail sector.<\/p>\n
“We’re anticipating a record result this year, up about 4 per cent over last year, which is good for retailers,” she said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Australian Retailers Association is predicting a 4 per cent increase in Boxing Day spending this year. (ABC News)<\/p>\n
“The economic climate we’re in means that people are bargain hunting more. It is really about Australians trying to get their household budgets balanced.<\/p>\n
“Australians are trying to have a lift and make sure they’re spending money wisely at times when things might be lower in price.”<\/p>\n
Online shopping may keep many people at home, but the ARA said 80 per cent of purchases on Boxing Day were still made in store.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Boxing Day sales face competition from Black Friday sales, but are still a major driver of retail spending. (ABC News)<\/p>\n
The emergence of Black Friday sales has not yet made the Boxing Day sales redundant, but has helped refine its purpose for retailers.<\/p>\n
“It’s a true clearance event, Boxing Day, so retailers really have to move that stock out the door,” Ms Brown said.<\/p>\n
“Black Friday is growing in popularity, but it’s also serving a role as that gift-buying period for Australians before Christmas.”<\/p>\n
Ms Brown also said shoppers were more likely to find a true bargain on Boxing Day than they would during the Black Friday sales.<\/p>\n
“If you’re looking for the pure percentage decrease, you might find Boxing Day in some categories is a higher percentage [reduction] and that’s because those items have to move,” she said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
There was only a modest trickle of shoppers when the Myer in Melbourne’s Bourke Street Mall opened its doors on Boxing Day. (ABC News)<\/p>\n
It was a slow start to the shopping day in Melbourne’s Bourke Street Mall, with a polite trickle of shoppers entering stores rather than the stampedes of yesteryear.<\/p>\n
“I haven’t come the last few years because of the kids, COVID and all that,” one shopper told the ABC.<\/p>\n
“Normally, I used to come here around 5 o’clock in the morning and there used to be a queue outside and all that, but this year is a little bit quieter,” he said.<\/p>\n
This Melbourne shopper was out early to grab a bargain in the Boxing Day sales. (ABC News: Nate Woodall)<\/p>\n
Another shopper said she left the family at home and came into the CBD early to get a head start on other shoppers.<\/p>\n
“The girls are a little bit older now so they’re still sleeping off the excitement of yesterday, so I came in nice and early to beat the rush,” she said.<\/p>\n
“There wasn’t much of a rush anyway. I think everyone is shopping online.”<\/p>\n
Shoppers have also been warned not to rush in to spending money on Boxing Day on something they might regret purchasing later.<\/p>\n
University of Melbourne Professor of Law, Jeannie Paterson, said it was important to consider if an advertised discount was really what it seemed.<\/p>\n
“The first thing to do is to slow down. I think Boxing Day sales, if we’ve got through Christmas, often we’re exhausted and we’re also in a hurry to find a good deal,” she said.<\/p>\n
“So it’s worth just stopping and thinking and considering whether it really is a discount.<\/p>\n
“The other thing that sometimes happens of course, is that old products or lower quality products are rolled out, and there’s a lot of fake products around online as well.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Retailers are anticipating a boost in activity during today’s Boxing Day sales, despite tough economic conditions across Australia.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372085,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,134574,99,5503,164,5216,15927,7240,5939],"class_list":{"0":"post-372084","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-boxing-day","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-christmas","13":"tag-economy","14":"tag-retail","15":"tag-sales","16":"tag-shopping","17":"tag-spending"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}