THE Scottish retail sector is set to rake in record profits with an unprecedented £850million expected to be spent in the post-Christmas sales.
Millions of Scots are on the lookout for bargains as shopping centres are braced for "frenzied" business over the next few days.
On Boxing Day, Scottish shoppers forked out a massive £260m in what was the biggest spending day in history.
The spree worked out at £487,000-a-minute, over an average of nine hours’ trading, just beating the previous record of £259m set on December 27, 2014, according to data from the Centre for Retail Research (CRR) and IMRG.
It was then estimated that a further £210m was brought in yesterday as the post-Christmas sales continued.
And today experts are projecting a spend of £147m in stores and online with millions looking to take advantage of discounts.
As such, in the six days between Boxing Day and New Year's Eve, analysts are predicted a record-breaking spend of £850m – one which would smash the previous £782m tally posted last year.
The increased footfall will be welcome news for the industry, following reports of poor sales in the run up to Christmas.
Professor Joshua Bamfield, of the CRR, said: “Post-Christmas is so big this year as some shoppers just refused to buy before Christmas when discounts were lower. But discounts are bigger after Christmas."
Around 100,000 people are expected to shop at intu Braehead today, following the 130,000 estimated from yesterday.
Gary Turnbull, general manager at the shopping centre, said: “It’s the busiest start to the Boxing Day sales we’ve had for years and people seem to have money to spend on a bargain or three and spending big is what they are most certainly doing."
Elsewhere, David Pierotti, of the Silverburn shopping centre, added: "We had our busiest run up to Christmas on record here at Silverburn and the crowds have continued to come through the doors over the past few days.
"Today we are expecting more than 75,000 – a nine per cent increase on last year – as the sales continue to attract shoppers in their hoards."
Around 750,000 Scottish shoppers are to spend £89m in stores today, according to the CRR, while retail experts IMRG and Experian are predicting another 750,000 to spend £58m online.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here