Online discounts and rising prices fail to deter enthusiastic shoppers – but crowd numbers are down on Christmas 2016, analysts say

Millions of Britons have enjoyed a last hurrah in the Boxing Day sales with determined shoppers camping out in the early hours to secure the best bargains although crowds were smaller than in previous years.

Shoppers started queuing outside branches of high street chain Next at 12.30am while on Oxford Street, in London a crowd started forming outside Selfridges at 2.30am. However, retail experts said that overall shopper numbers were significantly down on 2016.

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The power of the Boxing Day sales has been diminished in recent years due to a combination of internet discount extravaganzas such as November’s Black Friday and the fact that major stores such as Marks & Spencer and John Lewis start their sales online on Christmas Eve. But even if crowds were thinner, shopping centre owners reported brisk trade as those who did venture out spent more.

“People like to come sale shopping because it is the thrill of the kill,” said Tom Nathan, general manager at Brent Cross, one of London’s biggest shopping centres. “Some chains have also held back putting discounted items online, which has forced people out from behind their computers.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Customers try on shoes in Selfridges department store on Oxford Street, London, during the Boxing Day sale. Photograph: Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images

Nathan said there was was also an element of people trading up to branded products: “Popular items are full-length boots, cashmere coats and knitwear. People have waited for expensive items that are heavily discounted. People are also buying more cleverly. In perfumery Boots and Fenwicks have gift items that are 30% off and people are stocking up for later in the year.”

In London, one Selfridges shopper, Matthew O’Clery, a 19-year-old student from Perth, Australia, who braved the crowds in London’s West End described the store as “an absolute zoo” as sharp-elbowed shoppers hunted down discounted Alexander McQueen handbags and half-price Stella McCartney dresses.



Selfridges’ tills banked £4m in the first three hours of its sale with the retailer reporting that Boxing Day would be its biggest trading day of the year after 120,000 shoppers trekked to the London store.

Leaving Brent Cross, Arnold Ilunga, 26, a lorry driver from Stanmore, north-west London, said he had not meant to buy anything on the shopping trip but by lunchtime was holding more than 10 Zara bags, containing two coats and shirts and jumpers for his three children.

“My wife dragged me out,” said Ilunga. “I ended up getting more than I imagined. Even with the long wait I prefer going to shops rather than buying online because if the item doesn’t fit it’s a pain to return online stuff.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Butlers serve shoppers queuing at the Harrods winter sale on Boxing Day. Photograph: Matt Alexander/PA

In the run-up to Christmas fewer people visited the shops to buy their gifts and that trend continued on Boxing Day. Near closing time total shopper numbers were 4.5% down on last year, according to research group Springboard which tracks visits to shopping centres and high streets.

“What we have seen in the last couple of years is a structural shift in the Christmas trading period,” said Springboard analyst Diane Wehrle. She said the Black Friday sales had changed the way people shop because retailers started discounting in November.

Unlike most high street rivals, Next does not cut its prices before Christmas and the 1,000-strong crowds outside its branches in Birmingham and Silverburn, Glasgow, indicated the enduring appeal of big discounts, even in an age of non-stop discounting. The same is true for stores such as Zara.

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Nathan said visitor numbers had held up at Brent Cross. “It looks as if we were ahead of last year [in terms of footfall] and we are very busy today with trading somewhere around last year’s figure,” he said. “But it’s not just footfall but the level of spend. Retailers are seeing the average take per basket going up because people are busier and have reduced the number of shopping trips. So when they do come they spend more.”

Analysts are expecting consumers to cut back in the new year as inflation, linked to the weakness of sterling, erodes spending power and a wobbling housing market chips away at consumer confidence. Britons are also absorbing the impact of the first Bank of England base rate rise in over a decade on their finances.

Independent retail analyst Richard Hyman, said consumer confidence was paper thin: “There’s massive uncertainty. You’ve got inflation coming through, you’ve got earnings lagging to where they were years ago. This makes life difficult. Why would people be optimistic?”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A shopper on London’s Oxford Street. Photograph: John Stillwell/PA

But the upmarket stores in London’s West End are insulated from the country’s wider economic woes as high-spending tourists flocked to Oxford Street, Bond Street and Regent Street. The New West End Company predicted that more than £50m would be spent there on Boxing Day alone, up 4% on 2016.

“The Boxing Day sales have become a tradition for domestic customers but we also predict a high number of international visitors will take advantage of currency fluctuations and low-cost flights to come to the West End,” said Jace Tyrrell, chief executive of New West End Company, who predicted West End stores would rake in £190m over the Boxing Day week.

In Selfridges, Yang Cui is admiring an expensive haul that includes makeup, a suit, handkerchiefs and a scarf. “I am from China and there is high taxes there on goods, that’s why people buy clothes and handbags here,”he said.

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