Big festive spend tipped
As national Christmas sales forecast shoppers to spend more than $50,000 per minute online, Bunbury retailers are confident shoppers will support them.
The National Retail Association’s Christmas sale forecasts revealed shoppers would splurge $50,000 per minute online as part of a forecast $50 billion across all retail outlets.
Although online sales were expected to skyrocket, the association said physical stores could still expect a busy period.
Bunbury women’s fashion and accessories store owner Megan Gianfrancesco said although the Christmas period never picked up like it used to, she noticed more people were aware of the importance of shopping locally.
“Every year it’s usually pretty good, it does pick up but not like it used to many years ago,” Ms Gianfrancesco said.
“We’re hoping our locals are concentrating on supporting locals, I’ve noticed people coming in and saying they were shopping locally.
“It’s a blessing to our ears when we hear that.”
Traditionally Christmas has always been the busiest time for retailers and would set them up to see out the quieter periods at the beginning of each year, The Retail Co president Cherylz Kozisek said.
“Christmas was always that exciting time where shops are stocked and the expectation was that a fantastic Christmas would carry retailers through the quiet months,” she said.
“That’s still the expectation … the last couple of years have definitely been quiet and sometimes disappointing to the point where retailers have a lot of stock they then have to pay for.” Another nail in the coffin every year for bricks and mortar retailers are online sales during the Christmas period, such as Black Friday.
“It has an impact, I understand people are after a bargain, but is it a bargain you really need?” Ms Kozisek said.
“Maybe think about moderating your spending on that and spend some locally.”
This year the National Retail Association has estimated WA would experience an increase on last year’s Christmas spending from $5.1 billion to $5.2 billion.
Get the latest news from thewest.com.au in your inbox.
Sign up for our emails