Australians expected to spend $4.6bn in sales today
Retailers will be hoping for a boxing day boom, with the prospect that millions of shoppers will be out looking for a bargain at today's sales.
Transcript
00:00 I've been here since the early hours of this morning.
00:04 We turned up about 6am and still plenty of shoppers streaming in for those Boxing Day
00:11 sales.
00:12 I'm honestly pretty surprised at how many people we have seen.
00:16 Clearly online shopping hasn't killed things here at Chadston in Melbourne South East and
00:20 it's Australia's biggest shopping centre and still the shoppers here are managing to fill
00:26 the aisles, fill the 500 shops that are here at this centre in Melbourne.
00:31 And the shop behind me has had queues lining up for pretty much the whole day since it
00:36 opened this morning and one of the shop assistants there was saying it's actually the busiest
00:41 that they've ever been which is pretty impressive given a lot of people I think are constantly
00:46 trying to herald the end of Boxing Day sales and that maybe people are moving online.
00:51 But we've really seen a whole range of people coming out for a range of different reasons,
00:55 for some it's their family tradition, others have said that it's an Australian tradition
01:00 that they wanted to have a go at, others of course are here with their family and friends.
01:04 We've had a lot of dads and partners who've driven out their family, their wives and loved
01:10 ones to do some shopping here and we've got the famous family and friends section over
01:15 there where a few people are having a nap and I might even join them later but we did
01:19 manage to speak to a few people who are a bit more up and about earlier about why they
01:24 wanted to come out and brave the crowds here this morning at Chadstone.
01:27 It's my mum's first time coming to Australia on Boxing Day so I just want her to experience
01:32 Boxing Day for the first time at 6am.
01:34 I think this year is way better than Black Friday.
01:36 What time did you have to get up?
01:38 I haven't slept yet.
01:41 I've got my little goodie bag but I'm here as moral support.
01:43 And do you do this every year?
01:46 Yes!
01:47 Back in Malaysia it's not a public holiday but in Australia it's a public holiday where
01:50 things are on sale and shops open so early so it's something that's interesting for us.
01:56 We know that Combank said that actually one in two Australians were planning to participate
02:01 in today's Boxing Day sales.
02:04 We're also seeing those sales extend towards the end of the year and even beyond, similar
02:09 to what we're seeing with Black Friday so shoppers are going to have more opportunity
02:13 to pick up their sales and we've also heard that retailers are putting on bigger sales
02:17 kind of to do with the economic uncertainty at the moment that they're not sure how next
02:22 year is going to go in terms of interest rate rises so they're wanting to clear that stock.
02:26 So a lot of shoppers we've spoken to have said they've been pleasantly surprised by
02:30 the level of discount that they've seen here and it's sort of an interesting one because
02:34 a lot of people might think cost of living pressures, why are so many people out shopping?
02:39 But interestingly retail experts say that this is exactly the time when you do see these
02:43 sale periods doing really well and pre-Christmas spending was a bit more subdued but they were
02:50 forecasting that Boxing Day sales would be quite popular because in an economic pinch
02:54 people really are seeking out those discounts and those sales wherever they can so I might
03:00 have to go join them and see what discounts I can pick up myself.
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