It won’t be a very merry Christmas for retailers this year, with a new survey showing consumers plan to spend less this Christmas than last year.
The monthly Westpac – Melbourne Institute consumer survey for November found that 35 percent of respondents indicated they would wind back their Christmas spending this year, compared to a mere 14 percent who plan to spend more.
However, Westpac senior economist Matthew Hassan said retailers should not be overly concerned.
”What people say they will do is not always the same as what they turn out to do,” he said.
”There might be a bit of intention about these responses. People think back to last year and say ‘I’m going to economise this year, I am going to be good’. You see that every year going into the Christmas season.”
The Retailers’ Association executive director, Russell Zimmerman said he expects ”modest” growth this festive season.
”We believe that consumers and retailers are in a much better place this year than Christmas last year, remembering that as we came to Christmas last year we were going into a global financial crisis,” he said.
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