With 31 days to Xmas, ‘tis the season to spend up

WITH 31 days until Christmas, today is shaping up as one of the biggest to splash cash.

New research shows there was a spike in sales across Australia on the Saturday a month out from Christmas last year.

Payment platform Square analysed 14 million transactions from Australian businesses in the three months to December 25.

Twelve weeks out from Christmas, sales volumes rose significantly on the longer-term average: up 31 per cent in October, 57 per cent in November and 73 in December.

The middle two Saturdays of December were particularly busy, and the weekday peak was 1pm.

Spending on leisure and entertainment, including markets, music events, festivals, Christmas parties and other celebrations, surged 159 per cent in December. Retail was up 106 per cent, food and beverage, covering cafes and restaurants, up 80 per cent and beauty up 74 per cent.

Based in San Francisco, Square was co-founded by chief executive Jack Dorsey, who co-founded and runs social media platform Twitter.

The company provides contactless payment hardware, software and services to business.

Square’s country manager for Australia, Ben Pfisterer, said that as people increasingly shopped without cash, the company could glean useful information.

Digital payment systems could be powerful reporting tools to see what products were selling, the frequency of sales and the average amount spent in each transaction.

“The holiday shopping rush is the busiest time of year for a lot of businesses, so these data insights are extremely valuable in helping them make better, more informed decisions about how to prepare inventory and marketing to maximise sales,” he said.