Post-Christmas sales slump warning

BARGAIN: Warehouse after Christmas. PHOTO/FILE

A quarter of New Zealanders will brave the masses for the Boxing Day sales, a survey has found.

MasterCard's annual Christmas Shopping Research found that 25 per cent of people intend to make additional purchases on top of their Christmas shopping. Only 4 per cent will hold off entirely until Boxing Day.

The survey found the bulk of Boxing Day shoppers will use local shops and service providers (44 per cent), followed by "big box" retailers (37 per cent) and New Zealand-based online retailers (9 per cent).

"Boxing Day sales are a popular shopping time for Kiwis. Kiwis take advantage of the days after Christmas to particularly purchase items for themselves or large appliances," says Peter Chisnall, country manager for MasterCard New Zealand.

"While Christmas shopping can be stressful in picking the right gift, almost a third of those surveyed strongly agreed that Boxing Day sales are 'stressful and not worth the hassle'."

The popularity of the Boxing Day sales has come into question this year, as stores trend more towards pre-Christmas sales.

On Boxing Day last year Kiwis spent $225 million across the country.

Whether this record will be broken this week remains to be seen, particularly as the traditional Boxing Day sales have competition this year, with Black Friday and Cyber Monday competing for our coin.

Massey University professor Jonathan Elms, who heads the university's retail programme, has warned retailers to expect a post-Christmas slump in sales.

"Boxing Day is definitely going to be interesting because I think people are going to be shopped out. Many will have spent all they intend to in pre-Christmas sales. Shops could be left with a load of stock they can't shift because the pattern of trading has changed," he said.

"If the momentum goes out of the market, we are going to experience post-Christmas blues."

Paymark figures released on Wednesday have recorded the second year-on-year spending increase in the lead-up to the Christmas period.