CANBERRA: Shoppers have shrugged off concerns about rising interest rates to part with their hard-earned billions at the post-Christmas sales.
Retailers were still counting cash registers late yesterday, but anecdotal feedback suggested Australians are set to exceed the predicted A$6 billion (K15.5 billion) splurge between Boxing Day and mid-January.
That’s on top of the estimated A$36.5 billion (K94.2 billion) Australians spent in the lead-up to Christmas.
Suburban and regional centres did a roaring trade yesterday after the traditional Boxing Day sales at major city stores.
The Australian national retailers association said this year’s sales may be more lucrative than the predicted A$6 billion windfall nationally in the post-Christmas period.
“Certainly what I’m hearing from NSW, South Australia and Tasmania this morning, from a number of large member companies, it’s going to be a lot better than that A$6 billion,” chief executive Margy Osmond said.
“That may be conservative.”
The frantic spending won’t please the Reserve Bank, which has sounded the alarm bell in recent months about inflationary pressures that look set to drive interest rates even higher.
And with another rate rise tipped to hit family budgets early next year, there are warnings about the risks of overspending on credit.
Retailers Association spokesman Richard Evans said customers had been spending up big for a number of years and were continuing to do so, many of them on credit. – AAP