Any thoughts that post-pandemic Boxing Day sales would get back to the normal queuing, shoving, bargain-grabbing and buyer’s regret scenario of previous years could prove misplaced in 2022.
Our buying power has dwindled, workers are exhausted so some stores are remaining closed, the internet has taken over the High Street- there’s a familiar litany of reasons why Boxing Day sales are not what they were.
And in Aberdeen, two important landmark stores are but a memory.
No more John Lewis and Debenhams sales
No more early morning queuing for the John Lewis and Debenhams sales—annual fun spoiled for many a hardened bargain-hunter.
We’ve turned to The Press and Journal archive to relive the glory days of sharp elbows and six bags of bargains in each hand.
Who hasn’t used their kid’s buggy for extra carting power on occasion, but let’s hope there wasn’t a child under that lot.
Here’s a line you won’t hear anymore, from The Press and Journal of Friday December 26, 1997:
“Stores throughout the country reported long early-morning queues for the sales.
“Bargain-hunters at Debenhams, in Aberdeen’s Trinity Centre, typified the mood, with as many as 250 queueing for the 9am start.”
The store Next’s half-price Boxing Day sales has seen early morning queues like this year after year.
2000s boxing day sales
In 2000, the Aberdeen Next opened its doors at 5am, an hour and a half early due to kind-hearted staff taking pity on those queuing since the middle of the night.
That was the last year the store held its Boxing Day sale on December 27.
From 2001, the coveted sale would begin on December 26.
Remember that crush, seen above in Debenhams, Aberdeen. Very bad purchases could be made under that kind of pressure.
In those days House Of Fraser, Littlewoods and Woolworths were still fixtures in the city and attracted multitudes to their Boxing Day sales.
‘Bumper sales’, ‘frenzied hordes’ and ‘ringing tills’ were the hallmark of Boxing Day sales news during the Noughties despite intervening recessions, which now seem quite mild.
In 2004, shoppers queued up at ATMS to withdraw cash and Aileen Adam, Bon Accord Centre duty manager uttered words which retailers can only dream of today: “We have had a very good December and are delighted with the way things have gone.
“Our figures are up 2% on this time last year and so far this month we have had more than one and a half million people in the centre.
“Our Boxing Day was one of the best and busiest we have ever had.
“Yesterday our car parks were completely full from 10am and people were queuing up outside.”
But by 2005, The Press and Journal reader David Bain from Northfield had had enough.
He penned a letter to the editor asking what possessed folk to get up early and queue just to grab a bargain.
“Imagine spending Christmas Day all worked up in an excited lather at the prospect being first in the queue outside some shop! I just don’t get it.
“Surely, after all the weeks of Christmas shopping they must be sick to death of shopping?
“And the other thing I just don’t get is how they have cash left for this post-Christmas spending splurge.
“I fear they are as skint as I am and the goods are paid for with plastic.
“Maybe when they find themselves still paying through the nose in June, their Boxing Day purchases won’t seem such a bargain!”
Deaf ears
But no-one was listening it seemed, as the following year, 2006, more than 100,000
bargain-hunters flooded into Aberdeen on Boxing Day.
Store bosses reckoned on record-breaking sales.
Queues formed outside chain stores as they opened their doors, with massive price reductions promised.
The earliest birds were outside Next’s two branches, in Berryden and the St Nicholas Centre.
More than 400 people were queueing when the Berryden store opened at 7am, many of them arriving to bag their places in the line between 4am and 5am.
2008 saw a wobble though, after the financial crash.
Good news for hardened bargain hunters who saw prices slashed by as much as 70% on Boxing Day to try and make up for slow Christmas sales.
The wobble didn’t last long.
By 2010 John Lewis experienced record sales on Boxing Day and almost 45,000 people took to Union Square on Sunday – well up on the previous year.
Internet creeping up
By 2013, the writing was on the wall for those who cared to see it — Amazon noted it was expecting bumper figures for its Boxing Day sales.
But Black Friday had also begun to overtake Boxing Day for bumper sales figures.
When it comes to sales, we were a bit slow to discard our sea of plastic bags.
By 2018, there were still plenty of bargain hunters on Boxing Day, but the shine had come off the figures as the number of in-store shoppers fell across the UK for the third year in a row.
“While December 26 remains a popular shopping day, UK average footfall in high streets, retail parks and shopping centres for the period up to 4pm was 3.1% lower than for the same hours on Boxing Day 2017,” retail intelligence specialists Springboard said.
And Boxing Day shoppers in 2019 little suspected what was ahead the following year. Union Street like a ghost town with everything shut but essential shops.
Who knows what today [December 26 2022] will bring?
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