Christmas shopping Melbourne: crowds flock to stores in final week pre-Christmas

MELBOURNE shoppers are flooding centres across the city with foot traffic already up 7.5 per cent week-on-week across bricks-and-mortar stores.

Bourke Street Mall on Saturday. Picture: Tim Carrafa

STORES will throw open their doors for an extended trading frenzy with millions of shoppers expected to flock to major centres over the next week.

With just a week until Christmas Day, shoppers are out in full force across the city and retailers are offering late-night and all-night shopping sessions to meet the demand.

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Time-poor Melburnians are set to stock up on last-minute presents as well as food and drink for Christmas feasts in the precious few days before December 25.

Harriet takes a break in the busy Bourke Street Mall. Picture: Tim Carrafa

More than two million shoppers are expected to converge on Highpoint shopping centre in December with the mall gearing up for a massive 32-hour trading period from 9am on December 23 to 5pm on Christmas Eve.

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Centre manager Ryan Ling anticipates 185,000 people will visit during the 32-hour trading frenzy.

Left to right Lachlan, Alia and Nick hit the shops. Picture: Tim Carrafa

Chadstone will keep doors open for a record 34 hours from next Saturday to Sunday.

And Westfield centres, including Doncaster, Southland and Knox, will offer midnight trading on Friday, December 22. Group general manager John Warn said the last few days before Christmas were the busiest of the year for Westfield centres.

“We’re expecting hundreds of thousands of people through our doors,” Mr Warn said.

But it’s not just shopping centres that Melburnians are turning to for Christmas.

The Australian Retailers Association is predicting a major hike in foot traffic across local and inner-city stores.

Executive director Russell Zimmerman said foot traffic had increased 7.5 per cent week-on-week across bricks-and-mortar stores.

The ARA and Roy Morgan Research are forecasting Australians will spend more than $50 billion over the 2017 Christmas trading period from November 15 to December 24.

More than $20 billion of this is expected to be spent on groceries.

“Although more and more consumers are buying their Christmas groceries online, online retailers can only do so much leading up to the big day,” Mr Zimmerman said.

With extended trading hours in place, the ARA believes the festive season will drive supermarket sales up in the last weeks of December, exceeding last year’s sales by 3.27 per cent.