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“I felt more impressed by Black Friday than I did by Boxing Day,” Gale said.
“Definitely not shoulder to shoulder like I thought it would be, that’d be mayhem.”
While still a significant event in the retail calendar, Boxing Day has been dwarfed by the Black Friday period.
Australians were expected to spend $1.6 billion on Friday alone – up 4.3 per cent on last year – and up to $3.83 billion in the week to December 31 as stores slash prices following Christmas, according to data from the Australian Retailers Association.
However, the nation was estimated to have spent up to $39 billion on goods in the month leading up to Black Friday this year on November 28, and almost $7 billion in the three days between Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
The US-imported sales tradition has ballooned into a month-long discounting war in Australia, which has shaped how consumers plan their spending throughout the year, according to research from Monash University.
Australian Retailers Association chief industry affairs officer Fleur Brown said Friday’s sales attracted more online traffic than in past years, which suggested more customers looked up prices and stock levels and developed a plan of attack before leaving home.
Staff outnumbered shoppers at Myer Bourke Street in Melbourne at 7am.Credit: Simon Schluter
“We are still seeing the majority of sales happening in store, but a lot of that research happens earlier than that,” Brown said.
“They’re very focused when they go in store, more so than historically when you have that mad rush to just grab anything that moves.”
It’s an approach that worked well for Saim Khan, who stayed up until 4am researching discounts on clothes and a shaver before waking up just three hours later.
Shoppers Saim and Hafsah Khan at the Boxing Day sales in Melbourne.Credit: Simon Schluter
“I couldn’t sleep because I was too excited for the shopping,” Khan said.
“I’m just waiting for this day.”
The average Boxing Day shopper is predicted to spend $440, survey data from Finder found.
The prolonged window of sales that now extends from early November to after Boxing Day has led to the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia expressing concern at the toll that the expectation of huge discounting has on smaller shop owners, with some claiming they must sell at a loss to take part in sales events.
Friday marked the start of the biggest sales period for decades-old independent perfume and beauty shop Paint n Powder in Melbourne’s Royal Arcade, but the shop can only afford to offer lower prices for five days.
Owner Abbie Siegel said there was a limit to how much small businesses could discount prices without “cutting yourself down” and destroying what made them special.
“We do what we can to compete and to stay relevant, but there is a limit before you end up going backwards because you’re trying to compete with the big boys,” she said.
The trader said the city wasn’t as busy as previous Boxing Days a few hours after opening, but she hoped it would pick up.
“We haven’t been flooded like other days,” she said.
Boxing Day is still the biggest day of trade for the largest shopping centre in Australia, Melbourne’s Chadstone, which was prepared for 160,000 customers over 16 hours. This compares with 118,209 on Black Saturday, 112,727 on Black Friday and 75,299 on Christmas Eve.
Chadstone tripled the number of security guards it usually has to 18, and 40 workers were stationed in the car park to manage traffic.
A VicRoads employee even spent the day monitoring and manipulating light sequences on nearby major roads.
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“Boxing Day is when we absolutely ramp up,” the centre’s head of brand and marketing Mardi Ashkine said.
“Online is our biggest competitor, but certainly the in-store experience is what makes people get off the couch and come into the centre.”
David Jones expected 600,000 customers through its doors and 28,000 online orders on Friday.
Melbourne flagship store manager Monique Murray said Black Friday customers tended to be focused on Christmas, but Boxing Day clearance customers treated themselves.
“Our offers were available from Christmas Eve, so our customers have been able to see online those offers,” she said.
Monique Murray from David Jones in Bourke Street.Credit: Simon Schluter
It’s a similar story at Myer in Melbourne’s Bourke Street, where workers braced to process 355,000 transactions in total and 700 per minute at peak times.
Beauty, women’s fashion and homewares attracted the biggest discounts.
Melbourne Central expected 500,000 customers over three days from Boxing Day, with more families and bigger groups keen to use gift cards than usual, centre general manager Andrew Drivas said.
“People will mill around a little bit more slowly and enjoy the day,” he said.
That includes Alaina Demiris, who heads out every Boxing Day with her teenage daughter looking to splash cash they receive for Christmas.
“I’m a Boxing Day person, not so much Black Friday because I don’t particularly like online shopping,” she said.
“It’s a whole experience, we have lunch and we have our coffees, it’s just a day together.”
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