Al-anwar Newspaper English news in Australia
The state’s most desperate Christmas shoppers have been revealed by new credit card spending analysis.
Consumers in Mosman and Dubbo will do the most last-minute buying, research from NAB shows.
Panicked present purchasing will peak between midday and 1pm on Friday, the bank’s interrogation of 30 million transactions has found.
If you’re thinking they’re buying it all online and therefore all too late, you’re wrong.
NAB estimates 80 per cent of those 11th hour sales will in bricks-and-mortar stores, as people duck out from work to finish their Christmas shopping.
In that lunchtime hour, a whopping $400 million is expected to be spent, compared to $200m every 60 minutes during the rest of December 23.
Put another way, that’s $1m every nine seconds during that peak hour.
In total, nearly $5 billion will be outlaid on Friday, up about 15 per cent on last year, NAB forecasts.
Port Macquarie and Orange sit behind Mosman and Dubbo on last-minute-spending list.
NAB’s head of everyday banking Kylie Young encouraged consumers to think before spending big and not let the stress of Christmas get the better of them.
“It can be easy to get swept up in the excitement and overspend, or buy more than you need, which is why it’s important to set a budget and have a plan, both of what to buy and how you’ll pay,” Ms Young said.
Eighty-four per cent of Christmas spending occurs in the final week, according to figures from Salesforce, suggesting many people leave their gifting run till very late.
While inflation and rising interest rates are affecting consumer spending, NSW retailers are benefiting from the festive season not being affected by Covid restrictions or bushfires, as was the case in 2019.
