Prudential closes $4.5 billion brokerage stake sale
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Prudential Financial Inc said on Thursday it completed the planned sale of its minority stake in a retail brokerage to Wells Fargo & Co for $4.5 billion in cash.
The second-largest U.S. life insurer also received $418.4 million in principal and interest on a note connected to the joint venture, according to a regulatory filing.
San Francisco-based bank Wells Fargo inherited a majority stake in the joint venture, originally agreed between Wachovia and Prudential, when it acquired Wachovia last year.
Prudential said earlier this month in a filing that it expected a gain on the sale of about $2.3 billion before tax, or $1.5 billion after tax.
Shares of Prudential were down 14 cents or 0.3 percent at $50.40 in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
(Reporting by Elinor Comlay, editing by Matthew Lewis)
Reliance Retail to open 45 books & music stores by Dec 2014
Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Retail Ltd plans to open a total of 45 stores of its
books and music retailing business — Reliance TimeOut — across India over the
next three to five years.
The multi-format retailer, which operates
seven stores of TimeOut, said it wants to tap India’s Rs 3,500-crore book
retailing industry, of which only 40 per cent is organised.
“In the
next 3-5 years (or December 2014), we will have a total of 45 TimeOut outlets
across four states – mainly in western and southern India. Our strategy is to
first saturate a town, then a state followed by the entire region,” Reliance
Retail, Business Head, Reliance TimeOut, Deepinder Kapany told
PTI.
He said the next couple of months will see five stores being
opened in Mumbai.
“The next few stores in (calender year) 2010 will
come up in Delhi, Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Bangalore. We want to saturate Gujarat,
Maharashtra, Karnataka and the National Capital Region (NCR),” Kapany
said.
This is part of an overall aggressive expansion strategy by the
format, which will enter Pune, Nagpur, Hyderabad, Mysore, Mangalore, Ahmedabad,
Baroda and Jamnagar.
Reliance Retail will expand through the
cost-effective model of revenue-sharing format with property owners.
Use Merchandise Management to Streamline Retail Sourcing, Buying and Merchandising
Merchandise management system is a computerized information system to keep record of the retail inventory in a store or warehouse. Generally, retail merchandise can be clustered into product lines. Thus, the merchandise management system shows the exact number of products a business has in stock at any particular time. Merchandising traces its growth to the [...]
Fashion retailer D2 collapses
D2, the fashion retailer specialising in brands such as Levi’s and Wrangler has been forced into administration. Photograph: Getty Images
Youth fashion chain D2 has become the first post-Christmas casualty, collapsing into administration and putting more than 1,000 jobs at risk.
The retailer, which specialised in brands such as Wrangler, Levis and Kickers, is based in Scotland and had 79 shops, including three in Dublin.
Insolvency specialists James Stephen and Dermot Power from BDO Stoy Hayward have been appointed to take control of the business. The D2 website has been taken offline and two Irish stores have closed. Twenty-two people at the chain’s head office and 39 Dublin store staff were made redundant.
The administrators said they intended to continue trading in the rest of the outlets “with a view to selling all or part of the company as a going concern”.
The retailer’s collapse comes days after the final quarterly rent day of the year, which puts a huge strain on a retailer’s cash flow. Banks also typically call in their loans at this time of year, when corporate coffers are full and before cash is laid out for the year ahead. Many retailers have enjoyed a bumper Christmas, but insiders say young fashion has been hard going. Smaller retail groups have also been less well-placed to absorb the impact of weaker sterling and cost inflation.
Several high profile store bosses have warned that 2010 is likely to be a tough year as shoppers are hit by inevitable tax rises. Analysts have warned that more retail failures are likely, following the collapse of books chain Borders and the Threshers off-licence group in the weeks before Christmas.
D2′s demise comes 23 months after it was acquired – in January 2008 – from retailer Sir Tom Hunter by its co-founders Alan Kinney and Jim McGonigle. The purchase price was not disclosed and Hunter described the deal as “part of a decluttering strategy”.
D2 is the third Hunter fashion business to have run into financial problems. He sold the ailing Qube chain to JJB, where it was a key factor in JJB’s near-collapse.
Hunter’s USC chain has also had problems, going into administration 12 months ago. Most of the stores were bought back by Hunter, without the retailer’s debts and 300 staff, in a pre-pack deal with the administrators. Hunter still owns the Office shoe chain. He also has a stake in House of Fraser and owns Wyevale garden centres, which is now using local trading names. At the time of the D2 sale Hunter said he had “structured the deal to give the new owners the very best opportunity from which to capitalise on their position in the market.”
D2′s head office, which was taken over by BDO staff, had remained inside Hunter’s Ayrshire HQ.
Administrator James Stephen said: “It is unfortunate that difficult trading conditions have significantly affected the retail sector. We are continuing to trade and hope to sell all or part of the company as a going concern.”
• This article was amended on 31 December 2009. The original said that D2′s demise came 11 months after it was acquired from retailer Sir Tom Hunter by its co-founders Alan Kinney and Jim McGonigle. This has been corrected.
Retail holiday sales improve after dismal 2008
MONTREAL/CHICAGO (Reuters) – U.S. retailers performed better during the holiday shopping season this year than in historically dismal 2008, in line with lowered expectations, according to data released on Monday.
Activity tracked by SpendingPulse, a unit of MasterCard Advisors, showed retail sales rose 3.6 percent in the period from November 1 through Christmas Eve on December 24.
Factoring out an extra shopping day this year between the November 26 Thanksgiving holiday and December 24, that increase was closer to 1 percent, SpendingPulse said.
SpendingPulse figures reflect activity in the MasterCard Inc payment networks and estimates for other payments like cash and checks. They exclude gasoline and auto sales.
This year, fewer consumers had credit cards after issuers tightened lending terms, while many others said they preferred to pay with harder-to-track cash in order to stay on budget.
In 2008, spending fell 2.3 percent as tracked by SpendingPulse and 2.8 percent as tracked by the National Retail Federation, as the financial crisis led consumers to cut back.
“Last year the economy and consumer spending were in free fall. This year we’re talking about an environment that has stabilized. That has seen a leveling off,” said Kamalesh Rao, director of economic research at Spending Pulse.
Rao cautioned that a consumer return was tentative and far below 2007 levels. Holiday sales can account for 25 percent to 40 percent of annual sales for many retailers.
Looking at the holiday season as a whole, industry experts said retail sales neither added an optimism-inducing upside nor a deeply worrying downside to their forecasts.
“Holiday 2009 can be described in one word, ‘Adequate,’” NPD Group chief retail analyst Marshal Cohen said in a note.
The Standard & Poor’s Retail Index was up 0.3 percent by the end of trade on Monday. Top retail gainers included American Eagle Outfitters, up 2.9 percent.
NRF STICKS TO FORECAST
The National Retail Federation continues to expect a 1 percent drop in sales for November and December, while other forecasts predict a rise of up to 1 percent.
The NRF plans to issue its own holiday season tally, based on government data, on January 14. While it is not moving away from its forecast, “we’re encouraged by preliminary survey results,” spokesman Scott Krugman said on Monday.
Among stocks cited as holiday season winners this year, Gap Inc rose 1.4 percent. Wal-Mart Stores Inc, which offered early and deep discounts, rose 0.7 percent. Amazon.com Inc was helped by higher online shopping overall and its Kindle e-reader, and its shares rose 0.6 percent.
Wedbush, which tracked stores in four markets, said traffic at U.S. malls increased over the past weekend, with shoppers looking for last-minute items on December 24 and traffic up “significantly” on December 26 for post-Christmas sales.
Gap’s namesake chain was among the more promotional apparel retailers, offering an additional 40 percent off for clearance items on December 26, Wedbush said.
About 60 percent of the space at Gap stores was made up of sale merchandise, while that level rose to about 70 percent at American Eagle and 80 percent at Children’s Place and Gymboree, Wedbush said.
While visiting malls on New York’s Long Island on Saturday, Wall Street Strategies Inc analyst Brian Sozzi saw customers buy more items than they were returning.
“They were actually buying a mix of full-price and some of the discounted goods. So I think that’s a very positive sign as we go into January,” he said.
Coupons and gift cards handed out over the weekend to be used in January could also drive spending.
But it will be weeks before investors find out what the final push meant to retailers’ bottom lines. Several chains plan to report their December sales results on January 7. Full results will come after many retailers wrap up their holiday quarters on January 31.
ONLINE SAW BIGGEST JUMP
The increase tracked by SpendingPulse was aided by a 15.5 percent surge in online purchases as consumers became more comfortable shopping online and shoppers stranded by snowstorms on the East Coast and in the Midwest bought from home. Online retail sales account for about 5 percent of overall sales.
Sales at specialty electronics chains such as Best Buy Co Inc rose 5.9 percent after falling sharply in 2008.
Luxury sales edged up 0.8 percent. Jewelry sales shot up 5.6 percent and gathered steam just before Christmas.
Men’s apparel sales rose 3.9 percent, while women’s clothing sales edged down 0.3 percent. Sales at specialty apparel retailers such as Gap and Abercrombie & Fitch Co edged down 0.4 percent, but showed signs of life after Black Friday this year, rising 2.3 percent between the last Friday in November and December 24.
(Editing by Michele Gershberg and Tim Dobbyn)
Retail holiday sales improve after dismal 2008
MONTREAL/CHICAGO (Reuters) – U.S. retailers performed better during the holiday shopping season this year than in historically dismal 2008, in line with lowered expectations, according to data released on Monday.
Activity tracked by SpendingPulse, a unit of MasterCard Advisors, showed retail sales rose 3.6 percent in the period from November 1 through Christmas Eve on December 24.
Factoring out an extra shopping day this year between the November 26 Thanksgiving holiday and December 24, that increase was closer to 1 percent, SpendingPulse said.
SpendingPulse figures reflect activity in the MasterCard Inc payment networks and estimates for other payments like cash and checks. They exclude gasoline and auto sales.
This year, fewer consumers had credit cards after issuers tightened lending terms, while many others said they preferred to pay with harder-to-track cash in order to stay on budget.
In 2008, spending fell 2.3 percent as tracked by SpendingPulse and 2.8 percent as tracked by the National Retail Federation, as the financial crisis led consumers to cut back.
“Last year the economy and consumer spending were in free fall. This year we’re talking about an environment that has stabilized. That has seen a leveling off,” said Kamalesh Rao, director of economic research at Spending Pulse.
Rao cautioned that a consumer return was tentative and far below 2007 levels. Holiday sales can account for 25 percent to 40 percent of annual sales for many retailers.
Looking at the holiday season as a whole, industry experts said retail sales neither added an optimism-inducing upside nor a deeply worrying downside to their forecasts.
“Holiday 2009 can be described in one word, ‘Adequate,’” NPD Group chief retail analyst Marshal Cohen said in a note.
The Standard & Poor’s Retail Index was up 0.3 percent by the end of trade on Monday. Top retail gainers included American Eagle Outfitters, up 2.9 percent.
NRF STICKS TO FORECAST
The National Retail Federation continues to expect a 1 percent drop in sales for November and December, while other forecasts predict a rise of up to 1 percent.
The NRF plans to issue its own holiday season tally, based on government data, on January 14. While it is not moving away from its forecast, “we’re encouraged by preliminary survey results,” spokesman Scott Krugman said on Monday.
Among stocks cited as holiday season winners this year, Gap Inc rose 1.4 percent. Wal-Mart Stores Inc, which offered early and deep discounts, rose 0.7 percent. Amazon.com Inc was helped by higher online shopping overall and its Kindle e-reader, and its shares rose 0.6 percent.
Wedbush, which tracked stores in four markets, said traffic at U.S. malls increased over the past weekend, with shoppers looking for last-minute items on December 24 and traffic up “significantly” on December 26 for post-Christmas sales.
Gap’s namesake chain was among the more promotional apparel retailers, offering an additional 40 percent off for clearance items on December 26, Wedbush said.
About 60 percent of the space at Gap stores was made up of sale merchandise, while that level rose to about 70 percent at American Eagle and 80 percent at Children’s Place and Gymboree, Wedbush said.
While visiting malls on New York’s Long Island on Saturday, Wall Street Strategies Inc analyst Brian Sozzi saw customers buy more items than they were returning.
“They were actually buying a mix of full-price and some of the discounted goods. So I think that’s a very positive sign as we go into January,” he said.
Coupons and gift cards handed out over the weekend to be used in January could also drive spending.
But it will be weeks before investors find out what the final push meant to retailers’ bottom lines. Several chains plan to report their December sales results on January 7. Full results will come after many retailers wrap up their holiday quarters on January 31.
ONLINE SAW BIGGEST JUMP
The increase tracked by SpendingPulse was aided by a 15.5 percent surge in online purchases as consumers became more comfortable shopping online and shoppers stranded by snowstorms on the East Coast and in the Midwest bought from home. Online retail sales account for about 5 percent of overall sales.
Sales at specialty electronics chains such as Best Buy Co Inc rose 5.9 percent after falling sharply in 2008.
Luxury sales edged up 0.8 percent. Jewelry sales shot up 5.6 percent and gathered steam just before Christmas.
Men’s apparel sales rose 3.9 percent, while women’s clothing sales edged down 0.3 percent. Sales at specialty apparel retailers such as Gap and Abercrombie & Fitch Co edged down 0.4 percent, but showed signs of life after Black Friday this year, rising 2.3 percent between the last Friday in November and December 24.
(Editing by Michele Gershberg and Tim Dobbyn)
Wall St edges up to ’09 highs as holiday sales help
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks edged higher for a sixth straight day on Monday as data indicating improved consumer spending lifted shares of retailers, offsetting a drop in airline shares amid security worries.
Indexes hit fresh closing highs for 2009, but volume was light in what was expected to be a slow last week of trading for 2009, with investors attempting to hold on to solid profits for the year.
Sales at U.S. retailers rose 3.6 percent for the period from November 1 to Christmas Eve, but gained only 1 percent when an extra shopping day this year was excluded, data from MasterCard Advisors unit SpendingPulse showed.
Still, the data was enough to bolster shares of leading retailers, including Macy’s Inc, up 1.1 percent at $17.76.
“A few people were looking for a disaster, so that’s a little bit of a boost,” said Fred Dickson, market strategist at D.A. Davidson & Co. in Lake Oswego, Oregon.
“It looks like we’re drifting into year end with a modest rally on light volume.”
Airline stocks fell as the United States tightened airline security after a Nigerian man was charged with smuggling explosives aboard a transatlantic flight and attempting to blow up the plane.
The Dow Jones industrial average gained 26.98 points, or 0.26 percent, to end at 10,547.08. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index inched up 1.30 points, or 0.12 percent, to 1,127.78. The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 5.39 points, or 0.24 percent, to 2,291.08.
The S&P 500 is up about 25 percent for the year.
AMR Corp, the parent of American Airlines, lost 4.8 percent to $7.75, while Delta Air Lines Inc dropped 4.1 percent to $11.29. The NYSE Arca Airline index shed 1.8 percent.
On Monday afternoon, a branch of Al Qaeda said it was behind the failed Christmas Day attack, according to a Web statement.
“The airlines security concerns from the weekend certainly added a little heightened anxiety,” said Micheal James, senior trader at Wedbush Morgan in Los Angeles.
U.S. oil futures rose 72 cents to settle at $78.77 a barrel, after hitting $79.12, a five-week high. Energy shares advanced, picking up their cue from climbing oil prices. Shares of Exxon Mobil Corp rose 0.6 percent to $69.08.
Among other retailers, Amazon.com Inc rose 0.6 percent to $139.31 on Nasdaq after it said customers bought more e-books than physical books for the first time ever on Christmas Day.
The S&P Retail index added 0.3 percent.
Volume was exceptionally light on the New York Stock Exchange, with only about 705.31 million shares changing hands, compared with last year’s estimated average daily volume of 1.49 billion. On the Nasdaq, about 1.25 billion shares traded, also well below last year’s daily average of 2.28 billion.
Advancers outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by a ratio of about 16 to 15.
On the Nasdaq, though, the opposite trend held sway, with about five stocks falling for every four that rose. (Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; Additional reporting by Ed Krudy; Editing by Jan Paschal)
Flood of Shoppers at Bumper Christmas Sales
Shoppers take advantage of sales in the centre of Derby. Photograph: Rui Vieira/PA
Grim winter weather and the deepest recession in decades could not keep the sales shoppers at home this Christmas as retailers reported a bumper weekend on high streets, in shopping centres and online.
Encouraged by an imminent VAT rise, the fact that Boxing Day fell on a Saturday and promises of record-breaking bargains, shoppers were already lining up in the small hours of Saturday and the rush continued on Sunday as big chains such as Marks & Spencer waited to kick off their sales.
Online stores reported another Christmas surge but yesterday it seemed many bargain hunters still preferred to hit the high street. Queues quickly formed outside shopping centres, parched shoppers packed out high street coffee bars and cars snaked out of overflowing car parks up and down the country.
In Manchester, the city centre was bustling despite driving rain. A woman struggling through the downpour with a large M&S bag and several other bulging carrier bags said: “It is a nightmare out there.”
Many stores exploited the huge demand for discounts from cash-strapped consumers by opening their doors at 6am on Boxing Day, when they were not restricted by Sunday trading laws. In Milton Keynes shoppers started lining up at 3am on Saturday and at the Braehead shopping centre in Glasgow car parks were also filling up in the small hours. The sales rush continued yesterday, although big stores could not open for as many hours.
Gordon McKinnon, director of operations at Manchester’s Trafford Centre, said 150,000 people visited on Boxing Day and yesterday 20,000 people arrived before the noon opening time. But he was angry that opening was restricted to just six hours. “It is going to be much worse in 2010 when Boxing Day falls on a Sunday,” he added. “The frenzy of [Saturday] will be concentrated into just six hours.”
Laurence James, store manager at Kendals department store in Manchester, said Boxing Day had been hugely successful, with menswear in particular selling well, and that they had traded for 11 hours. “We were up 20% on Boxing Day last year,” he said. “We are expecting today to be down on last year because it is a Sunday. I expect Monday is definitely going to be the busiest shopping day of the year.”
More than 1,000 shoppers queued up at at thecentre:mk in Milton Keynes yesterday morning for the start of the John Lewis and Marks & Spencer sales with around 15,000 people flooding into the centre before tills opened at 11am.
The centre director, Robert Goodman, said many retailers were reporting double-digit sales growth. But he added a note of caution about darker winter weeks to come. “There is no doubt in my mind that the New Year sales will continue to attract shoppers on the lookout for bargains, but we are expecting a slower January and February across the retail sector as a whole after the sales end,” he said.
Shopping centres reported a big boost from shoppers who wanted to beat the imminent rise in VAT, which is going back up to 17.5% on 1 January from the government’s emergency rate of 15% over the last year.
Trevor Pereira, commercial director of the Capital Shopping Centres chain, which includes the Lakeside complex in suburban London and the Metrocentre near Gateshead, said: “Retailers are experiencing high demand for laptops, TVs, mobile phones and homewares. Winter coats, cocktail dresses, cashmere cardigans and jumpers and winter boots are also proving popular sales items.”
But some shoppers were disappointed at their rewards for braving the bedlam. “There have not been massive discounts,” said Bill Hamilton, from Worsley, Greater Manchester. “A lot of stuff in the sales is not that reduced or seems to be the old tat they have rolled out again for the sales. I had been expecting more choice. I have just bought a pair of jeans because they were 40% off.”
Those opting for online shopping seemed happy to abandon family celebrations for a spot of retail on Christmas Day, making the most of an even earlier start to the sales on the internet. Department store chain John Lewis launched its online clearance on Christmas Eve and reported a record first three days with sales up 23% on a year earlier. It received an order every 10 seconds on Christmas Day, when the most popular purchases included guest beds and folding treadmills to work off the Christmas pudding. Boxing Day saw a record number of visits to its site.
The success added to a record Christmas for the John Lewis partnership’s Waitrose supermarkets as festive cooks splashed out on gourmet wares, lifting sales a fifth up on a year ago to £134.6m in the week to Boxing Day. Sales of three-bird roast (turkey, goose and duck) leapt 87%.
Large, out-of-town supermarkets also enjoyed a big jump on last year’s shopper numbers, with Tesco reporting a 50% rise to 1.4 million Boxing Day customers, who bought TVs at a rate of 35 a minute as well as toys, DVDs and other non-food items. Staple fruit and vegetables were in demand too ‑ Tesco sold 625 bananas a minute.
Sales draw huge Boxing Day crowds
Shoppers queue outside Selfridges on the first day of the sales in London. Photograph: Luke Macgregor/Reuters
Thousands of bargain hunters flocked to high streets across the UK today in search of post-Christmas bargains and millions more were expected to be sale shopping online.
Shop owners said they were hoping to see one of the busiest days of the year as the Boxing Day sales began.
In Manchester, four shoppers were slightly injured when a ceiling panel collapsed on top of them in Selfridges shortly after the store opened at 8am. Next and Debenhams opened their doors at 7am to draw in crowds.
In a statement, Selfridges said it had immediately cordoned off the area of the store where the ceiling collapsed and paramedics had arrived within five minutes.
“Selfridges is currently assessing the cause of the incident,” the company added.
In London, hundreds of people formed a queue outside Selfridges’ main store, which opened at 9am. As the store opened, many sprinted through the doors, some of whom were elbowing their way through the crowds.
Stewards were brought in to control the shoppers and a separate line formed for customers hoping to get their hands on Gucci products.
A combination of poor November sales and the imminent 2.5% rise in VAT, which comes into effect on 1 January, means retailers are desperate for bumper December sales.
Tesco has 249 stores open and Sainsbury’s had 94 supermarkets open today with Currys, Argos, Comet and PC World opening its stores. But Morrisons, Waitrose and Marks & Spencer remained closed.
A decade ago, virtually no high street chains opened on Boxing Day, but by 2005, 60% were open for business.
On Oxford Street in the West End of London, Bargain hunters Nat Wanwalee and Naween Mukdasanit, 25, from Hammersmith, had arrived at Selfridges at 6am.
“There were no buses until 8am, so we paid for a taxi to come here,” Mukdasanit said. “I’m not looking for anything in particular. We wanted to get in the Gucci queue but it was too long so we’re looking at everything.”
Mary Adonis, 32, who lives in west London, managed to get there at 2am.
She said: “I want to look in all the departments, maybe for a bag. I love Gucci.”
Nadia Alqabandi, 41, from Westminster, and her 14-year-old daughter Aseel, arrived with blankets at 6am.
Alqabandi said: “I’m looking for Prada and she’s looking for Juicy (Couture). We came with blankets – we had a plan. We come sales shopping every year.”
At the Lakeside shopping centre in Essex some shoppers arrived at 5am to get to its branch of Next, which opened an hour later.
Paul Lancaster, the general manager at Lakeside, said: “With Boxing Day falling on a Saturday, we always expected the start of this year’s sales to be really popular. Bargain hunters have been out in force and it has been an excellent day.
“With more of us receiving gift cards as presents, shoppers are always keen to spend these in the post-Christmas sales,” he said.
Internet retailers were also hoping to attract savvy customers by cutting prices. Website lastminute.com reduced the price of holidays, flights and leisure activities by up to 60%. Head of travel Andy Washington said the site saw a peak at 3.23pm on Christmas Day as users looked for cheap breaks, with the top destinations Canada, Austria, and Egypt.
Capital Shopping Centres (CSC), which owns 14 shopping sites across the country, said it was expecting bumper days today and tomorrow.
Trevor Pereira, the commercial director, said: “Customers have been flooding through our 14 centres’ doors from the early hours today.”
He said shoppers are planning to make their sale purchases before the VAT hike comes into effect, and “as a consequence we are extremely busy”.
“Retailers are experiencing high demand for laptops, TVs, mobile phones and home-wares. Winter coats, cocktail dressers, cashmere cardigans and jumpers and winter boots are also proving popular sales items,” he said. “We expect tomorrow to also be a busy day.”
More shoppers visited Braehead in Glasgow than this time last year, and the Metrocentre in Gateshead said it had seen an “excellent” start to the sales.
Online stores start their sales
More than 4 million people were expected to go online to start their sale shopping on Christmas day, with many major retailers already cutting prices.
IMRG, which represents the e-retail industry, predicted 4.3 million people would spend a total of £120m online – an average of £27.90 for every person. Last year £102m was spent online on Christmas Day, with traffic was up 39% over Christmas Eve. Experian Hitwise said Christmas Day was the seventh busiest online day of the year last year, with Boxing Day the busiest.
Amazon.co.uk said it saw a 150% increase in sales on Christmas Day 2008 compared with 2007. High volumes of gift certificates were redeemed on Christmas Day and a substantial number of MP3 tracks were purchased, probably by people who had received MP3 players as gifts, it said.
John Lewis’s online sale started at 6pm on Christmas eve, while Marks and Spencer followed in the morning. Many retailers were offering special incentives for people to go online at Christmas. Consumers also have the incentive of getting their sale shopping done early to avoid the increase in VAT, which goes back up to 17.5% on 1 January. Lastminute.com expected a spike at 3.30pm, similar to last year, as people tired of their family commitments. “It’s as if after a few hours of the Christmas ‘oblication’ – aka the obligatory family holiday – people were already desperate to book their next break and get away from it all,” said Andy Washington, head of travel at Lastminute.com.
Other stores started their sales earlier, with both House of Fraser and Debenhams reducing prices online on Christmas eve.
More than £3bn will be spent in the sales this Christmas, according to research by American Express. It said adults expect to spend an average £85 each at the sales.
Stores across the country reported strong sales the day before Christmas as shoppers splashed out an estimated £1m a minute. Shopping centres such as Meadowhall, near Sheffield, said bad weather conditions had not limited the number of people trooping through its doors.
John Lewis and Debenhams said people looking for last-minute bargains had driven up sales, while Selfridges said it was also expecting “strong and robust” figures. Comet, the electrical retailer, predicted a record number of online visitors over the Christmas weekend.
Season winners so far also include Waitrose, which reported making £38.7m in sales on Wednesday, £4m more than the same day last year. The supermarket said it had sold 55,200 scoops of mince pie ice-cream, 624,000 chestnuts and more than 34 tonnes of turkey.
About 130,000 last-minute shoppers were thought to have flocked to the Trafford Centre in Manchester, with a spokesman for the shopping complex saying more than 140,000 people were expected on Boxing Day, with stores opening their doors to bargain hunters at 7am.
More than a million people visited the centre in the seven days leading up to Christmas, a drop of 4% compared with the same period last year.
