Shops bulge with bargain hunters

MARK TAYLOR/Waikato Times

LET US IN: More than 100 people were waiting when doors opened at The Warehouse at The Base at 8am this morning.

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Tough economic times were cast aside today as shoppers turned out in huge numbers to the Boxing Day sales.

The country's largest eftpos company, Paymark, said early figures suggested that this year's Boxing Day turnover may be higher than last year's.

Paymark's Paul Whiston said at the peak of shopping, between midday and 3pm, 220,000 purchases were made.

Shopping centres throughout the country reported a brisk trade with queues forming outside malls before the doors were opened and car parks filled to overflowing.

Mr Whiston said the upsurge would have come as a relief to retailers, after a very slow couple of months.

"People have held off and left (shopping) to the last minute."

Today's sale followed a record Christmas Eve spendup when a total of $216 million in sales was reported.

Bargain hunters were queuing well before the doors opened for Boxing Day sales this morning as retailers looked to make up for a below average pre-Christmas spend.

But some of the roughly 100 shoppers lined up outside The Warehouse at The Base in Hamilton wanted to keep their wallets closed a little longer.

Katherine Barron from Hamilton, with her partner and two children in tow, only wanted to exchange a gift. "We came along to beat the rush but were disappointed with the sales. It was just pretty much the same deals on before Christmas."

Hamilton's Charleen Coker and her son Jack were browsing but said the number of fellow shoppers appeared down.

"There were a lot of people out here this morning but a lot less than last year. I think a lot less money is being spent."

Paymark, which deals with the majority of Eftpos payments, processed almost three million transactions on the last Saturday before Christmas. However the number of transactions was down 4.2 percent on the same time last year, and the spend of around $162 million was down 8.8 percent.

Rather than buying today, many have already discarded unwanted gifts just hours after they were unwrapped.

Christmas lunch was yet to settle when hundreds of members of auction site TradeMe listed items including earrings, DVDs, digital photo frames and cosmetics on the website, some complete with photos of the items and comments such as "unwanted Christmas gift, just not my kinda thing".

The Commerce Commission warned shoppers earlier this month to "be savvy" and to voice concerns over deals that they believed to be misleading or unfair.

The commission's fair trading director Adrian Sparrow said consumers needed to "steer clear" of making costly mistakes at a highly-pressured time of year.

- With NZPA