Carolyn Young: Retail NZ Chief Executive on this year's boxing day sales

For those brave enough to bear boxing day sales yesterday, it was bargains aplenty.

For some it is the biggest day of the calendar for retailers nationwide.  

Retail NZ Chief Executive Carolyn Young said she expects sales to be up from last year. 

Young joins the show to discuss where Boxing Day sales sit nowadays and how people are spending this year. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
For those brave enough to bear Boxing Day shopping, and
there's a lot of you. It was a bargains of plenty.
Of course, there were queues, battles for car parks, even
a temporary f poss meltdown for some. It's one of
the biggest days on the calendar for retailers nationwide. Retail
end Z's chief executive Carolyn Leyung joins me. Now, Carolyn,
good morning, Good morning, So was it a big day

(00:39):
of spending?

Speaker 3 (00:41):
Well, look, I sput to a number of retailers yesterday
and they're very happy with the sales that they were having.
Lots of traffic, lots of people out and about and
people shopping, so it was great to see.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
How does it compare to previous years.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
We don't have the data yet, but people were pretty
happy with where they were in terms of what their
expectations were. So we'd expected to be at least flat
or slightly up on last year.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Do we have too many sales?

Speaker 3 (01:08):
Sort?

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Is Boxing Day as special as it used to be?

Speaker 3 (01:12):
It's a really good question. Isn't it, Because you're right,
there are a lot of sales that happened during the year,
although it is one of those markers, you know. I
think the midwinter, Christmas and the summer sales are the
critical ones that have been around for a long long time.
And Black Friday has been introduced and then a lot
of other stores had other sales at other times, but

(01:34):
the small stores and provincial areas that are independents, they're
their key sale times. Normally they don't have sales every
other week, so they're looking really mainly at having those
sales after winter and after summer.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Because the Boxing Day sale itself, the actual sales extend
for several days. Is the twenty sixth still the peak.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
Yes, you're absolutely right, and some in fact actually started
before Boxing Day. There were some sales on earlier in
this week and the weekend before, so yes, it doesn't
extend beyond Boxing Day. It's still a really big day
because that's when the biggest sales are on and that's
when the most stock is available. So certainly I was
out a couple of stores yesterday and there was some

(02:17):
empty shells, So certainly the peak part of Boxing Day
and what.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Were you actually doing yesterday? We're just keeping an eye
on everyone, or did you actually did you dabble yourself
and think I actually no, Now I come to think
of it, I need a new television.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
We had a couple of things that we had to
get to the household, and so we were out looking
for those and popped into a couple of other stores.
But I didn't make any personal purchases.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Well done? Did that take some sort of well power?

Speaker 3 (02:43):
I don't have my eye on so well. You know,
sometimes when I was with Mark and I kind of stup.
Now it's not the time to be saying, let's pop
into the store here, so I can do that a
bit later.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
On my own, on your own, of course, unobserved. So
I think there are plenty of families like that. It's like, no,
I'm not going to go with you. You'll be watching
what I'm spending. How's twenty twenty five? Is the outlook
a little bit happier? Do you think.

Speaker 3 (03:12):
It is? With caution? Right, because we know that a
number of economic leaders have been told we know that
inflation is now under control, that unemployment's on the rise,
that the official cash rates been reducing. So that's going
to help people in terms of their mortgage rates will
come down, and generally that's one of the key factors
around consumer confidence, which will also make a difference around

(03:35):
how much people spend. The caution piece really is that
now the economists are saying, actually, the recovery that we
thought was going to be a bumper one may be
much more mild than we anticipate and it may take
us longer. So with a bit of caution, but I
think hopefully we're out of the worst of it.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
Well, fingers crossed. I really appreciate you your time this morning, Carolyn.
That's Carolyn Young. She is CEO of Retail in Z.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
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