Boxing Day sales go down a treat in the North Island

Boxing Day craziness at the Bayfair shopping Centre. Photo / George Novak

Boxing Day punters turned out in droves at New Zealand's biggest mall yesterday in the search for the best shopping deals and steals.

Sylvia Park had recorded close to 70,000 people through the doors by 4pm yesterday, up 31,000 on their usual Wednesday foot-traffic of about 39,000.

Marketing manager of Kiwi Income Property Trust, which owns Sylvia Park, Jo Allen said it had been a great day with more than five hours of shopping time left.

"It's been amazing. We've had a traffic management company in to assist with flow with us opening up another 600 carparks. "I think it's on par with previous years. The biggest difference is this year they started very early so we were able to capture that market really well."

Carparks were overflowing and people packed into stores like sardines during Boxing Day sales in Hawke's Bay.

Thousands of shoppers raided retailers of their bargains in Napier and Hastings, armed with credit cards and a ready-to-rumble mentality.

Briscoes Hastings was so busy the manager didn't have time to take a short break and talk to the Hawke's Bay Today.

Over at Rebel Sport, patient shoppers took to the floors, sitting down as they waited for the line to quietly move along to the tills.

Last year, no less than 280,000 people visited one of Kiwi Property's six shopping malls throughout the country on Boxing Day.

Allen said Sylvia Park stores still expect a large number of people to visit the mall over the next few days.

"Obviously, Boxing Day seems to be the pinnacle of the sale frenzy," she said.

"I think the weather will play a big factor in what happens for the few days afterwards as well and people will still come and sales will still be on.

"The expectation is that we will have a lot of people through but perhaps not the same as today."

Elsewhere, the Christmas hype might have died down but hordes of traffic queued on Auckland's motorways in an attempt to ditch the city, causing major delays.

The Northern Motorway was chock-a-block for much of Boxing Day and was slow through Puhoi, Warkworth and Wellsford.

State Highway 4 also remained closed from Raetihi to Whanganui because of slips.

NZTA advised northbound traffic to use SH3, SH1, SH49, on to Raetihi Ohakune Rd and back on to SH4.