A combination of fine weather and pent-up consumer demand resulted in a bumper opening day of the winter sales for many retailers today.
Brown Thomas reported an a significant increase in early trade while projections from the Dundrum Town Centre were equally upbeat.
First out of the blocks again this year was clothing chain Next. It's sale started at 6am yesterday and more than 1,000 people were queuing to get into its shop in the Dundrum Town Centre when it opened its doors.
It was handbags at dawn outside Arnotts's on Dublin's Henry St and while the queues were not as long as over at Next, the competition for bags in particular was fierce with one shopper snapping up eight designer bags before the sale was 30 minutes old.
Queues started forming outside Arnotts at 5 pm on Christmas Day and by the time it opened at 9am yesterday, there were around 300 standing in line. A whole wall of satchel bags from Guess marked down from €170 to €85 disappeared in less than three minutes. "The dry sunny weather certainly brought customers out earlier and footfall is tracking up on last year, the store's retail director Leesa Kavanagh said.
Last year Brown Thomas had to postpone the start of the sale in its flagship Grafton St store by 24 hours because of a burst water pipe but this year it was people and not water which flooded the store.
Its branches in Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway all saw a significant bounce in trade with Galway and Limerick in particular doing extremely well.
"It has been a really strong start and we have noticed a lot of Chinese shoppers in particular coming through the doors this mornin," Mr Sealey said, reflecting a trend noticed earlier this year.
"The sale has started very strongly in Cork, Limerick and Galway too," he said. He told The Irish Times that he anticipated a shorter sale this year he expressed the hope that sale stock would cleared within two weeks.
The marketing manager of the Dundum Town Centre Jeanette Jordon described trade as very busy, She said some retailers had reported sales being more than twice what they were on the same day last year. "In the first three hours of business today some tenants have matched a full day's trading last year," she said.
Ms Jordan also said Christmas week had been very good and she said footfall was 28 per cent up on the same period last year.
