Shops enjoy new records as the great sales frenzy begins
Fights break out at tills and high street stores see their highest takings after crowds queue overnight
MILLIONS of shoppers swamped the high street in search of bargains yesterday as Selfridges recorded the most profitable hour in its 100-year history.
Crowds lined streets in mild weather from 1am for the most highly anticipated shopping day of the year. However, excitement spilled into violence by the time stores opened, with fights reportedly breaking out in some shops.
By 10am, Selfridges had taken just over £2 million at its tills across Britain – a 2 per cent increase on its previous highest takings.
Last night, analysts said foreign shoppers and the unseasonably warm weather were partly to thank for the retail boom – which is expected to bring in £3.7billion for shops over the sales period.
Diane Wehrle, of retail analysts Springboard, said sales yesterday were “surprisingly positive” given the overall downturn of high-street performance against online.
“It is encouraging to see high streets performing significantly better than Boxing Day last year,” she said. “This can be put down to an array of enticing offers, the start of clearance and a great atmosphere for customers.”
In London, queues numbered up to 4,000 outside some stores – up to half of them were Chinese and Middle Eastern shoppers, according to reports.
Selfridges estimated it had more than 130,000 customers at its Oxford Street store, with crowds flocking to the designer fashion section and elbowing one another to get a glimpse of an Oscar de la Renta bustier dress slashed in price from £14,470 to £2,995.
Sally Erwin, a shopper from America, said: “This is really a madhouse compared to the United States.”
Daniel Graham, from Australia, said: “It’s a bit mental – there are a lot of people, a few fights. This lady was trying to push in, and this person wasn’t taking it, so they got security.”
Harrods in Knightsbridge also saw one of its biggest-ever queues, which ran around the corner of the building. The department store was expecting more than a million customers through its doors during the four-week winter sale. Ejorn Keight, 29, said the scenes were “unbelievable”, adding: “We came all the way from Frankfurt in Germany just to shop here. We came for just one day, arriving last night and leaving this evening.”
West End retail experts said half of shoppers were thought to be tourists, with Chinese, Middle Eastern and US shoppers spending “four or five times the amount of a UK shopper”.
Jace Tyrrell, chief executive of New West End Company, which represents 600 retailers in Bond Street, Regent Street and Oxford Street, said: “We have seen the rise of Chinese in the last couple of years. They are now our third-largest shopper and they will be number one in a couple of years.
“We have a lot of store staff now speaking Mandarin. Also, there are services for our Chinese clients – making sure they are at the hotels, talking about what the offer is and having shop staff who can speak Mandarin and take them around.”
Elsewhere in the capital, 380,000 customers were believed to have visited the Westfield shopping centres.
In Manchester, shoppers were seen queuing outside a Selfridges at 3am and later surging through the doors as shutters came up. The first buy was a black Yves Saint Laurent clutch bag, reduced to £619.
Long queues and heavy traffic also hit the designer outlet store in Bicester Village, Oxfordshire, while more than 20,000 shoppers descended on Meadowhall shopping centre in Sheffield.
Retail giants John Lewis and Marks and Spencer were on course for record takings online. John Lewis said it was enjoying a “strong start”, with orders online increasing 17.7 per cent on last year. Mark Felix, director for online trade, said: “This is a strong signal that consumer confidence has come back.”
Analysis of footfall showed that outof-town shopping centres enjoyed a 9.4 per cent boost, due to the growing popularity of “click and collect” services.
Meanwhile, Britons’ desire to shop locally led visitor numbers to smaller shopping centres to surge by 23.9 per cent.
Ms Wehrle said that about 22 million shoppers were predicted to visit stores during the sales.
VoucherCodes.co.uk and the Centre for Retail Research estimated that £3.74 billion would be spent in the sales in total – a 6 per cent increase on last year.