Early birds hit stores

Invercargill’s earliest bird waited outside The Warehouse from 6.30am to be the first in line for the store’s Boxing Day specials.

Estelle Cockburn wasn’t looking for anything in particular, but said she liked to see what was on offer. She made sure she arrived early every year and ‘‘did expect there would be more people’’.

There were about 50 people already waiting when she arrived at The Warehouse at the same time on Boxing Day 2018.

There were 10 people waiting for the doors to open this year, while a further 10 went through the doors just after the store opened at 7am.

Manager Kelvin Mooney said it was a pretty average turnout but thingsget busy between 9am and 10am. ‘‘It’s just mayhem, but it’s heaps of fun,’’ he said.

Mooney expected the store’s toy sales to be the big attraction for the day.

That’s certainly what Daniel, 12, and Meagan, 9, Saunders were there for. The siblings convinced their dad Stewart to take them before work so they could use their Christmas vouchers to buy Lego.

The turnout was about the same at Harvey Norman, where 12 people were in front of the door when the store opened. Alane Matheson arrived at 7am to buy a washing machine at half price.

She wasn’t expecting to be right at the front of the queue.

Hardik Chauhan and his wife Kinjal were also there at 7am. They arrived in Southland in September and wanted to buy a fridge and a bed.

Things took a little longer to heat up at Kmart, with shoppers arriving only five minutes before the store opened at 8am. At least two of the nine were there for returns. The store hadn’t advertised any Boxing Day specials on its website.

Smith City opened to only one customer at 8am, but Super Cheap Auto and Hunting and Fishing were both relatively busy by 8.30am, judging by the number of cars in their parking lots.

H & J Smith, which used to have queues around the block for its Boxing Day sales, opened at 9am. There were three customers waiting for the store to open at its entrance on Tay St.

Sam Keene had already been to Glassons and was hoping to catch some bargains. She said the sales were ‘‘pretty good’’ but that there were fewer people than she expected.

Photos: JOHN HAWKINS/STUFF Ashton Smith, left, and Ethan Hair check out some decals at H & J Smith; Kath Conner, right, is the cook at Age Concern. She used the Boxing Day sales as a chance to stock up on goodies for next year’s Christmas celebrations, to keep costs down.