THE RECESSION might not have ended yesterday but it felt like it had for a number of retailers, as the start of the winter sales marked a return to some boomtime spending.
The fight for bargains began early in Dundrum Town Centre which said some shops were almost twice as busy as they were on the opening day of last year’s sales.
The director of the centre Don Nugent described the women’s shoe department in House of Fraser as being “like a war zone”. Menswear departments across the centre were also outperforming expectations, he said, while accessories “were doing very well”.
Mr Nugent said the atmosphere in the centre was “buzzy”. Business was so good, in fact, that the centre kept its doors open for an extra hour until 7pm last night and has also extended tonight’s opening hours until 9pm.
In Dublin city centre, the major retailers who opened their doors, expressed satisfaction with how things had gone.
However, the Brown Thomas flagship store in Grafton Street was unable to open because of flood damage. The store’s sale will now begin at 9am today.
A spokeswoman for Clerys department store on O’Connell Street said business was “about on a par” with last year. The queues started forming under the shop’s famous clock at around 4.30am and by 10am more than 150 people had gathered, with the first 100 getting a free hot breakfast in the shop’s restaurant for their troubles.
The first things to go were three five-foot beds which had been marked down from €1,800 to a single euro. The 32-inch flat-screen televisions, selling for €99, €300 less than their regular price, were also snapped up. Outside Arnotts, there was a crowd of more than 500 by the time recent X-Factor contestant Mary Byrne started singing at 9.30am. An American fridge selling for €299, down from €699, went to three people from Mongolia who had queued from 2am on Christmas Day.
Arnotts general manager Leesa Kavanagh said business would match last year.
Business in Debenhams branches around the country was also said to be brisk throughout the day.
Sarah McClure, who was strolling on Grafton Street with her mother-in-law, was able to compare sales fever in Ireland and the UK. As regional manager with the Footlocker chain, she has had some experience of the British “Boxing Day sale” frenzy.
“I think St Stephen’s Day shopping will take three to five years to come into its own here. But we got some bargains,” she said.
