Retailers go to desperate measures to pull in shoppers

Hundreds of supermarkets and department stores are now open around the clock until Christmas Eve. A record number of shops are trading all day and night to try to boost sales. Retailers said they predicted a late Christmas rush this year and have been cutting prices as part of their efforts to persuade cash-strapped Britons to loosen their purse strings. Many stores reported a surge in sales at the weekend as people ventured on to high streets and into malls to snap up bargains. Jace Tyrell, of the New West End Company which represents more than 600 traders in London's Bond Street, Oxford Street and Regent Street, said around 600,000 people visited the West End on Saturday, with Sunday also proving busy. He said: "It was heaving and shoppers were definitely spending." A spokesman for Capital Shopping Centres, which has interests in 14 regional shopping centres, including MetroCentre in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne and Lakeside in Essex said: "Being the last weekend before Christmas Day, panic shopping happened. "Customers have been trying to find good bargains for Nintendo Wiis, laptops and cameras. Demand for pyjamas and slippers have also been high." Andrew Parkinson, general manager of Bluewater in Kent, said: "With Christmas Day falling on Thursday this year, retailers were expecting a peak in sales over the weekend and it's expected to last through until Christmas Eve with many people cramming in last-minute shopping." Norman Black, spokesman for Brent Cross Shopping Centre in London, said it had been the busiest weekend of the year, but warned the sales boost may have come too late to beat total Christmas figures for last year. "The last couple of days have been excellent," he said. "But Christmas has come very late and we would still expect to be behind last year in terms of the amount of money we will take." He said the shopping centre expects to see 200,000 people through its doors between now and close on Christmas Eve, spending a predicted total of £16 million on last-minute shopping.

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ITN | December 22, 2008

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