Firstly, happy new year to all my lovely loyal readers – here’s hoping 2020 will be a great year for you.
Here we are again in January, and in the world of retail that means sales time! This excites all sorts of shoppers, be it the shopaholic, the once a year shopper, the online shopper, the browser, the regular shopper or those who really just need to purchase stuff.
It’s always interesting around this time of year to learn what consumers are spending their money on and how much they are spending.
Executive Director of the Australian Retailers Association, Russell Zimmerman, stated that the ARA predicted spending across Australia would rise despite the sluggish year the retail industry had experienced. The release of annual joint ARA/Roy Morgan pre-Christmas predictions for 2019 – covering November 14th to December 24th estimates Australians to spend a whopping $53bn before Christmas. Mr Zimmerman also added that queues of people keen to strike early on Boxing Day suggested a good start to post-Christmas sales. They also expected to see the trend continue with a strong demand for clothing and footwear which generally performs well in the Boxing Day sales.
This was very encouraging news from the retail boss. “We think retail sales for Boxing Day 2019 will top $2.5bn, which is 2.86% up on 2018 – SA was predicted to turn over $135,754,065 with a forecast growth of 2.5%’’.
But these predictions could be affected by the big recent retail events such as Singles’ Day, Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Click Frenzy. These figures will officially be confirmed when the Bureau of Statistics release it’s trade figures in February.
Smart Shopping
So how to cope during the sales when faced with great temptation to buy more clothes and accessories. Firstly, most of us love and enjoy adding something new to our wardrobe every now and again, but it’s more fun and brings much more joy when you love wearing all of the clothes in your wardrobe!
Smart shopping questions to ask yourself…
- Is the garment at least an 8 out of 10 in your eyes? If not it may never be, therefore, leave it and move on.
- Is it an amazing fit on you and does it suit your body?
- Is the colour helping your skin, eyes and hair to shine and stand out in a striking way?
- Will it work within your existing wardrobe and/or match appropriately with at least 3 other items?
- Do you feel fabulous/stylish/attractive in it and more importantly do you feel confident in it?
- Ask yourself if you would pay full price for it.
- Ask yourself if can you really afford to purchase the item.
As seen in http://www.weekenderherald.com.au/