Are they shoppers or tyre kickers swarming to retail stores this Christmas, as inflation bites?
It’s 12pm in Sydney’s central business district, with only four days to go until Christmas, and shoppers seem to be in short supply.outside luxury retailer HermesMore is less this year for shoppers Brooke Weston with friend Jill Valentine and Hugo Weston, Ella Weston, Max McCaffery, and Lachlan Weston. in Sydney’s Pitt Street Mall.But most people crossing the retail hotspot of Pitt Street Mall are visibly missing the tell-tale pre-Christmas shopping bags on their arms.
Weston and Gurto – one sombre, one upbeat – are typical of shoppers who retailers have been trying to get a read on in the lead-up to theAlso upbeat is The Australian Retailers Association, which is tipping Christmas retail sales to be 6.4 per cent higher this year at $66 billion, including apparel, household goods, restaurants and others. It reckons inflation will weigh on retailers’ margins and spending, but not until next year.Economist Frank Shostak disagrees.
Fund manager Richard Ivers, who can invest in ASX-listed retailers from his fund at Prime Value Asset Management, has a similarly pessimistic view of shopping appetite. Without a crystal ball and with most Australian retail giants publicly listed and gagged on sharing bellwether pre-Christmas sales data, smaller retailers are investors’ best bet for getting a read on the spending this year.
“People are just a little sceptical of what they see in the news. They just want to get on with their lives,” Didaskalou said. For shoppers that do splurge this year, shirts and skirts online retailer Ozsale is seeing a similar preference for brick-and-mortar over e-commerce.“It’s been a bit of a 180-degree turn this Christmas period. Right now, they want to go out. E-commerce will continue to grow, but it’s just going through a funny period now,” OZsale chief executive officer Kalman Polak said.
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