Irish retailers announced bumper results from the first day of the post-Christmas sales. Although spending in shops around the State was up between 10 and 15 per cent during the first weeks of December, consumers still seemed to have plenty of extra money to spend yesterday.
Mr Paul Kelly, head of the Brown Thomas Group said that in the Dublin store opening day sales figures were up around 12 per cent on the same time last year, with demand especially strong in the women's clothing and home goods sectors. The manager of Brown Thomas Cork, Mr Alan Reidy reported similar results, with an increase of around 14 per cent in sales. "There are loads of people in the store here," he commented.
At Clerys department store in central Dublin, group marketing manager, Ms Liza Jones, said almost 100 people had been queuing outside the main entrance prior to its 9 a.m. opening; having arrived up to two hours earlier, their efforts were rewarded not just with a pick of the reductions on offer but also a free breakfast.
"Our hourly productivity results show that we are up more than 10 per cent on last year, so we're very satisfied with the results," said Ms Jones. However, she noted that aside from an especially eager group of bargain hunters prepared to get out of bed early, most customers were slow to start their shopping yesterday. This appeared to be a widespread trend. In the Blanchardstown Shopping Centre, general manager Mr Aidan Grimes commented that the first couple of trading hours had been quiet but business then picked up and he was predicting a total spend of £10 million, an increase of around four per cent on last year.
Elsewhere, the same results were being reported. A spokeswoman for Heatons, which has branches in most major urban centres, said all outlets had lines of customers waiting for the 1 p.m. start of the company's sale. Typically, in the Portlaoise store, more than two-thirds of last year's opening day business was done within two hours yesterday.
No area of the retail industry seemed immune to consumer spending. At DID Electrical in Dublin's Mountjoy Square, a spokeswoman said customers had begun queuing an hour before the outlet opened and at 4 p.m. there was still a line of people waiting for admission to the premises.
A spokeswoman for the Dixons and Currys chains said they were having a "buoyant day" right across the range of products carried.
However the spokeswoman cautioned against drawing any conclusions and advised that it was still too early to predict whether yesterday's sales boom would continue.