Boxing Day sales rush: Mayhem on roads and at shops as traders reveal record numbers
Thousands of shoppers have been pounding the high street since Christmas, with experts saying £3.74 billion was spent alone on Boxing Day across the country.
Drivers queued to get into the car parks at the Merry Hill Shopping Centre in Brierley Hill yesterday, with the chaos expected to continue in the next few days.
Meanwhile, shopping centre bosses revealed this festive period was their busiest to date.
The New Square shopping centre in West Bromwich experienced its busiest ever December, with an estimated 900,000 visitors.
Centre manager Steve Burr said: "We're delighted to be able to report another record breaking Christmas for New Square, with exceptional footfall and many of our retailers also reporting their highest ever sales figures.
"The flagship brands the centre has attracted, as well recent retailer additions and our seasonal marketing activity have all combined to make the centre a strong proposition for Christmas shoppers."
Intu, which owns the Merry Hill shopping complex in Brierley Hill, said tens of thousands of shoppers had descended on its stores causing some disruption to motorists in the vicinity.
"There were queues at a number of our sites and it was an early start for some of our more popular retailers," said Gordon McKinnon, operations director of Intu.
"The sheer numbers meant traffic around Merry Hill was affected but overall the shopping has been busy and at a steady rate."
On Boxing Day, Selfridges had its most successful-ever first hour of trade, taking more than £2 million between 9am and 10am across its stores.
Harrods in Knightsbridge, central London, saw one of its biggest-ever queues, which ran around the corner of the store on Boxing Day.
The department store expects more than one million customers to come through its doors during the four-week winter sale.
Jace Tyrrell, chief executive of New West End Company, which represents retailers in Bond Street, Regent Street and Oxford Street, said wealthy foreign tourists were fuelling bumper sales.
Elsewhere, shoppers said stores were like a 'madhouse' as bargain-hunters set about getting the best deals.
Major stores in the region like Next and the Selfridges flagship Birmingham store saw bargain hunters braving stormy conditions to begin queueing hours before official opening times.
Retail experts said shops offered discounts topping last year's average of more than 50 per cent, according to advisory firm Deloitte.
Steve Richardson, UK regional director at analysts FootFall, said: 'With Boxing Day on a Saturday, this means for most an extended Christmas break with the extra bank holiday on Monday.
"We anticipate the extra day motivated shoppers to use it to seek out further bargains, spend Christmas vouchers and even return or exchange unwanted Christmas gifts, causing shopper traffic to rise three per cent year-on-year on Boxing Day."
An estimated £856m was spent on the internet on Boxing Day - 22 per cent up on last year, according to analysts at Experian and IMRG, the online retailers association.
John Lewis launched its sale online, although its shops remained closed, and officials said its sale has got off to a 'strong start' after launching on Christmas Eve at 5pm.
