Last-minute Christmas shopping spree will see retail sales top £340bn
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Version 0 of 1. Nearly six million shoppers will be pounding the high streets today looking for last-minute Christmas gifts in what is turning out to be one of the best festive seasons in recent years – for consumers. The mild weather, heavy discounting and the continued rise in online retail have all helped shoppers. Sales on Christmas Eve are unlikely to top the £1m a minute spent on Tuesday; however, the last-minute dash will help retail sales hit an all-time annual high of around £342bn, according to the Government. Nectar Card parent company Aimia believes more than one in 10 people will make a trip to stores on Christmas Eve, with perfume expected to be one of the big last-minute sellers. Men are traditionally expected to make up the majority of shoppers, while at lunchtime on Tuesday was expected to be the peak shopping period for the whole festive season. Amanda Callaghan, director of corporate affairs for the British Retail Consortium, said: “There’s been very fierce price competition this year, so there are a lot of bargains. Inflation has been lower than previously, which has been good for customers, and there has been price food deflation, too.” However, retailers could suffer because of last month’s Black Friday, which saw an unprecedented number of shoppers spending an estimated £800m. Retail consultant Richard Hyman explained: “Black Friday has been a disaster for retailers because they have lost lots of customers who would have been willing to pay full price, buying products at a discount.” This was highlighted by John Lewis, with the department store revealing that sales fell by 2.4 per cent last week compared to a year ago, although bosses insisted this was a sign that shoppers are leaving it until the last minute. Ms Callaghan said that this year has also seen a huge rise in integrated shopping between online and in-store shopping. “Delivery used to be the bugbear of online shopping but now you can chose so many different ways to have it delivered, whether that be in-store, home delivery or collection from your local newsagent,” she said. In good news for high-street stores, research from Aimia found that just three per cent of shoppers said they would be doing all their shopping online, with 84 per cent saying they would be using both online shops and high-street stores. John Lewis also revealed that its click and collect service was up 30 per cent on last year. |