Shoppers go for the baubles

A last-minute shopper buys a tree from the Warehouse in Albany on Auckland's North Shore yesterday. Photo / Steven McNicholl

Frustrated shoppers have resorted to fighting over carparks at shopping centres as the deadline for Christmas shopping draws near.

One stressed woman got out of her car and had a screaming match over a carpark with other drivers in Newmarket.

Newmarket business association chief executive Ashley Church said it seemed the woman did not get one of the few available carparks and got out of her car to fight over it.

"Security was called, but by the time they got there she had gone. I think it's probably a good thing that people are fighting over carparks because it shows there aren't many free because there are so many shoppers."

Hayley Collins, who works in the Westfield Albany mall, said she saw a man doing his Christmas stock-up resort to ramming another man's trolley in New World Albany.

"One guy was just standing in the middle of the aisle talking and this other guy was trying to get past him. Then the other guy rammed his trolley into the other guy's trolley to make him get out of the way. It was like he was trying to start a fight."

Three of the major shopping centres in Auckland have reported busy shops, lots of sales and packed malls.

Mr Church said people in Newmarket were "shoulder to shoulder" as they tried to fit in the last of their Christmas shopping.

"It seems that we have been quite busy this year and the nice weather seems to have brought more shoppers [yesterday]. We won't know how the sales have compared to last year because we don't tally the shops' totals until 5am in the morning."

One retailer told him the past three days have been the busiest he has ever had.

Westfield spokeswoman Deb McGhie said the company's shopping centres have all been doing well, but could not comment on how many sales have been made. She said sales figures would be released in the middle of January next year. She said the St Lukes and Albany malls were doing particularly well because they were main centres and popular with last minute shoppers.

All the main Westfield malls were open until midnight in the run-up to Christmas because many shoppers prefer to leave their shopping until late Christmas Eve, she said.

"Some people go out to dinner then do their Christmas shopping about 10 at night because there are fewer shoppers and there's not such a battle for carparks. It's actually quite busy around that time."

She said many people flock to the malls just before Christmas to get a last sit on Santa's knee.

Paymark tallies eftpos transactions and the company's chief executive, Simon Tong, said at this stage shoppers' spending was on par with last year, which was relatively busy.

"We can't give dollar amounts at this stage because we tally the numbers overnight, but by the amount of transactions a second it seems about the same as last year. For example, between 12-1pm there were 120 eftpos transactions a second."