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Hundreds of thousands of shoppers rushed to take advantage of bargains across the country yesterday as Boxing Day sales drew huge crowds to stores.
Bargain hunters started arriving outside Selfridges in Oxford Street, central London, at 2am - seven hours before opening time - in an effort to snap up items discounted by up to 75%.
Pre-dawn queues were also reported outside Debenhams branches at the Lakeside shopping centre in Essex and Manchester's Trafford Centre and at Harvey Nichols in Edinburgh.
Almost 3,000 shoppers waited outside the recently opened Westfield centre in west London long before stores opened at 9am. An estimated 160,000 people went through the doors of the Liverpool One shopping centre over the course of the day.
But despite the frenzy and outlets such as Selfridges reporting record volumes of sales, the scale of the discounts being offered was still likely to leave takings down on last year as retailers brace themselves for a bruising 2009.
The sector is reeling from a series of high-profile collapses, with Woolworths just 10 days away from closing its doors for the last time. On Christmas Eve, the entertainment chain Zavvi became the latest high-street name to go into administration, after tea and coffee merchant Whittard of Chelsea and menswear chain Officers Club. Further collapses are expected in the new year.
Early arrivals at Selfridges in London could pounce on heavily discounted stock such as Stella McCartney sequinned dresses and Balenciaga structured coats at £350, reduced from £1,463 and £1,287 respectively.
The store later recorded its highest ever sales in a single hour, between 1 and 2pm. It is believed nearly £1m went through the tills in that time, more than Selfridges has ever taken in an hour in its 99-year history.
A spokeswoman said the store's estimated 150,000 customers yesterday included many from Korea, China and Japan - typically people living in the UK but without family to see over the Christmas period - alongside tourists from Europe and the US making the most of the weak pound.
Even among those staying at home over the last two days, there have been plenty taking time out from the seasonal festivities to go online in search of bargains.
John Lewis opened its online clearance sale at the earliest ever time of 6pm on Christmas Eve. By 8pm, it had recorded its busiest hour of online trading, clocking up an order every second.
The group - which unlike many rivals keeps its stores closed on Boxing Day - saw Christmas Day online traffic 12 times greater than last year.
John Lewis said its bestselling products included bedroom and dining furniture, and 50-inch plasma televisions.
PC World, Currys and Dixons also reported booming online sales of electrical goods such as large TV sets, with visitors to their sites up 30% to 40% on last year. Amazon also reported "hundreds of thousands" of people going online to shop on Christmas Day.
The internet retail group IMRG predicted earlier in the week that more than £100m would be spent online on Christmas Day, as people hunt for bargains and spend gift vouchers they have been given for Christmas.
The sales bonanza over the two bank holidays followed a late pre-Christmas rush as shoppers held off from buying presents to benefit from increasingly generous discounts in stores.
"Overall [revenues] will clearly be less than last year," said Andy Street, managing director of John Lewis.
"But actually it has been stronger than we expected in the final few weeks. Customers have left it even later than ever to do their shopping."
However, analysts believe the Christmas stampede has demonstrated the fragility of the retail sector at the onset of a recession.
Footfall - the number of customers going into shops - has been down in recent weeks, with even Christmas Eve showing a 4% fall year on year.
"You would expect footfall to be up given the size of the discounts on offer," said Jonathan De Mello, director of retail consultancy at Experian. "The fact it's not shows that the strategy isn't working."
He said he expected footfall to be down for Boxing Day and warned that the discounting was eating into shops' profits. "Given the weakness of the pound and increasing cost pressure, if you're having to discount by 50% or 60% you're going to make no money."
The British Retail Consortium said it had been "a poor Christmas" for retailers as customers were looking to save money by cutting back and trading down.
"We'll see the full December figures in a few weeks, but they won't be pretty," said Stephen Robertson, the BRC director general. "Discounts and promotions on a scale unprecedented for the run-up to Christmas, combined with weak sales, have put margins under severe pressure. All retailers are looking to sharpen their performance to make sure every part of the business can meet changing customer needs as efficiently as possible."
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