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Thousands of shoppers have crowded British shops early today in order to grab bargains in the end of year sales. With big brands making big cuts in prices, it seems that everyone would rather turn up outside shops in the early hours of the morning instead of traditionally celebrating Boxing Day with the family. Indeed, this year has been a record year as many shops have claimed that sales queues more than doubled from last year.

The huge queues started shortly after 4am this morning, focussing on Oxford Street in London. It is claimed that up to £1000 a minute was being spent at some shops today. The prices, naturally, were very attractive with stores such as Birmingham’s Selfridges offering up to 75% reduction in price of goods. In the Oxford Street branch, over 9,000 customers walked in in the first hour of sales in the morning, and it is estimated that “500,000 shoppers ventured into London’s West End” today.

The sale chaos wasn’t restricted to London, as Essex’s Lakeside shopping centre was also packed with thousands of shoppers, the quantity being a third higher than last year. It is thus clear that this year marks a record in sales and that the perks of Christmas are far from ending for shopowners. As Richard Dodd, from the British Retail Consortium, said:

“Today is much busier than Boxing Day last year as more stores have started their post-Christmas sales early, rather than waiting till tomorrow. It’s clear that retailers are going to have to offer bumper sales to tempt customers in, because finances are under strain this year. A lot of customers are reluctant to spend and there are worries about how their finances are going to stand up.”

What I don’t understand myself is why people go through all the bother to brave the crowds and spend hours sifting through items by hands so early after Christmas. In my experience online sales are much better because you can do it all from the comfort of your own room in half the time! Thankfully, other people have had this good sense too, as statistics show that “3.6 million people spent part of their Christmas Day searching for good deals via the internet”.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 27th, 2007 at 12:23 am and is filed under Internet, Fashion, Lifestyle, Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.