Australians flocked to spend an expected record-breaking $1.3bn on Boxing Day sales
Australians spent an expected record-breaking $1.3bn on Boxing Day sales this year.
Australians flocked to stores and queued up online on Thursday for an expected record-breaking year for Boxing Day sales.
Sydney’s Bondi Junction and Melbourne’s Bourke Street Mall were among the popular shopping centres that drew massive crowds as new data from the Australian Retailers Association and Roy Morgan projected Boxing Day spending to reach $1.3bn, up by almost 2 per cent from 2023.
Household goods, food, and clothing and footwear were likely to be the most popular Boxing Day buys, set to come in at $378m, $259m, and $197m, respectively.
The spending spree is expected to continue throughout the week following Christmas, with shoppers tipped to fork out $3.7bn, up 2.7 per cent on last year.
The entire nation will spend big during the final week of 2024, with NSW splurging the largest amount with a total of $1.1bn.
The rest of Australia won’t be far behind, with an expected total of $951m in Victoria, $746m in Queensland, $234m in South Australia, $410m in Western Australia, $74m in Tasmania, $33m in the Northern Territory, and $69m in the ACT.
Australian Retailers Association chief industry affairs officer Fleur Brown said consumers were increasingly interested in big annual sales.
“With the cost-of-living crisis, we’ve seen more shoppers shift their attention to sales events including the Black Friday and Cyber Monday activities,” she said.
“Australians love a bargain and are keen to make their dollars go further in the face of challenging economic conditions.”
Ms Brown added that shoppers typically used this sale period to buy “little luxuries” and necessary items for themselves after finishing with Christmas gifting. “Boxing Day is more of a ‘gift for self’ or ticking items off the household shopping list. It’s even more popular this year because people are trying to balance their budget,” she said.
While in-store shopping is still more popular than online shopping, Ms Brown said an increasing number of people were using companies’ websites to be better prepared for sale season.
“We’re seeing a rise in what we call ‘the purpose shopper’. This is someone who’s planning a lot more and doing online research, even checking product availability or in some cases also ethical considerations like sustainability before they go shopping,” she said.
As Aussies flocked to sales online and in-person, they were warned to be aware of their financial risks and rights.
The AFP urged consumers to beware of online shopping scams, as Australians reported nearly $4m of these scams between January and October 2024.
The NSW government said NSW Fair Trading had already handled more than 6300 complaints this year about “defective or unsatisfactory products, ranging from broken gadgets to poor-quality purchases”.
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