Consumers spending closer to Christmas ‘quite considerably down’

Australian Retailers Association CEO Paul Zahra says consumer spending close to Christmas has gone “quite considerably down”. Mr Zahra sat with Sky News Australia to discuss the drastic difference between Black Friday spending and Christmas shopping. “Australians will spend around $646 each this year on gifting for others compared to $700 last year,” he said. “But what we didn’t anticipate so much is that Black Friday would be such a record sale event. “So Black Friday was forecasted to be 3 per cent up on last year, $6.36 billion will be spent over that Black Friday weekend and by all accounts, whilst we don’t have any hard numbers, retailers have said it’s either matched or exceeded their expectations.”