Chinese shoppers help West End till receipts hit over £52 million in Boxing Day Sales – EuropaProperty

During the Boxing Day sales in London’s West End, shoppers spent around £52 million across Bond Street, Oxford Street, Regent Street and the surrounding neighbourhood – a rise of 4 percent from last year. Tills across the West End’s tills took around a total of £190 million over the Boxing Day week.

The Boxing Day sales are firmly fixed as a key trading period for retailers in the West End. Spending has consistently increased year-on-year, with domestic and international shoppers spending more per head than ever before.

For the West End, international tourists are a crucial market for post-Christmas sales as many take advantage of cheap flights and the devalued pound for shopping trips after the holiday. Of the £190 million being spent this week in the West End, £62 million will be spent by international visitors, at an average of £1,043 per head.

According to Tax Free shopping specialists Global Blue, the value of purchases by Chinese shoppers saw double-digit growth over the past 12 months, and over the Boxing Day week visitors from China will be responsible for 20 percent of all non-EU spend in the West End: a trend which is expected to remain strong into January.

The Boxing Day sales mark the end of a strong Christmas shopping period in the West End, in which retailers focused on personalised gifts and experiences to make shoppers’ Christmases memorable. While Christmas Eve sales figures are still being calculated, shoppers were predicted to spend nearly half a billion pounds in the West End in the final week of gift buying before Christmas.