I’ve so far managed to avoid Christmas shopping, not helped by the fact that I can’t stand crowds….probably some sort of medical thing, but I feel claustrophobic in large crowds and ill to the point of near panic. Only at Christmas I might add, I wonder if there’s a phobia for that?
But I digress: she who must be obeyed spent 4 hours shopping on Bridge Road Richmond yesterday, long famed as one of Melbourne’s cut price fashion strips, and usually busy at the best of times. Her exact words to me is that she couldn’t believe how quiet the shops were.
She also said that she’d heard shop owners discussing how quiet Christmas trade was this year, and even customers saying they’d been to Chadstone (the largest shopping center in the Southern Hemisphere) and that they could easily find a park, which in good times is hard any day, let alone a week prior to Christmas.
Our local shopping strip Camberwell has definitely been quieter for months, and while the number of people is up getting close to Christmas, it’s not the mad house you’d expect in a good year. I can drive the strip in under 10 minutes at lunchtime on a Saturday (so yesterday)….
God knows then how the SMH is saying spending will be up $700m this Christmas. I’m going to head to Chaddy Monday morning for a quick shop, and will report back then, but it certainly smells like bad times to me.
Well, I gotta say I'm not seeing it in WA. I went shopping with my sister to help her buy new tv yesterday, and while waiting as dispatch to pick he 42″ plasma, two 60″ lcd tv's, one 50″ and one 42″ went out the door, this was in a period of 15 minutes. So if the country is going to go in the crapper, at least we'll all have hi def tv's to watch it.
also went to a westfield (carousel) and it was the usual Christmas madness.
Can easily find parking at Chadstone? Times must be tough. Just discovered dstore.com.au accepts PP.
On Friday Perth was the usual chaos during the day, but by 6pm was as quiet as a mouse.
I've been shopping at Doncaster and it's been chaotic.
They've installed a car park monitoring system that allows you to see which car spaces are available (red/green LED) and they also count the total free spaces. Last week I arrived on a Sunday at about 10:30 am and the count was just toggling from zero to one. After 20 minutes of following other cars around I gave up…
So, I'm not seeing an obvious purse-tightening…yet.
That also depends on how many are going there for windows shopping 🙂
Dunno. I went to two Westfields over here in Sydney (Hurstville & East Gardens) on Saturday, and did not end up getting anything (but our usual weekly groceries). The crowd-ness is definitely less than last year. Maybe we got hit harder than Melbourne.
We've been shopping 2 weeks before to avoid crowded mall day. We've bought all we needs in advance. Every year we're doing it to avoid crowded malls and hard parking.
Isn't the new light system in the Doncaster carpark fantastic! I was surprised at how many free spots there were during the day last week and assumed it was partly because of the increased number of spaces there.
Judging by the huge number of cars in the carpark at K Mart Burwood at midnight last night maybe people are looking for cheaper options this year?
I hate the crowds too so do most of my shopping online but thankfully I don't do the Christmas 'thing'.
Completely agree Duncan – I have been to most of the major shopping centers in Melbourne over the past week, and have had zero issue finding a free car space. Very unusual, and I am certain that shopping $$ will be down significantly this year.
I did my Christmas shopping early to avoid holiday rush. Just like you, I also can't stand crowds. That's why I usually shop in the morning to avoid crowded malls.
As a Chaddy regular (coffee and the library … I mean Borders 😉 is my oasis while the wife and 7y.o daughter shop) my guesstimate is that it's about 30% down from the last few years. Still busy, but not like it was 2-3 years ago (aka: utter mayhem).
I'm wondering how the New Year sales will pan out – personally, I'm waiting for that time to buy a 126″ Plasma TV – the best buys are always after Xmas and the New Year.
BTW, Merry Christmas, Duncan – am I still allowed to say that? 😉 or have we finally beaten the PC tools down…
We've been shopping after christmas, still crowded and too hard to park. WE promise to our selves to never shop that day again.