SYDNEY - Bargain hunters are gearing up for clearance sales, with shoppers nationwide tipped to spend more than A$6 billion ($6.8 billion) in the post-Christmas period this year.
Hundreds of thousands of shoppers are expected to descend on department stores across the country tomorrow when the annual saleskick off.
Recent interest rate rises, higher petrol prices and money already spent on Christmas presents are not to likely to deter shoppers, who are expected to spend A$6.2 billion from tomorrow until mid-January - up seven per cent from last year.
David Jones will officially launch its clearance at the flagship Elizabeth Street store in Sydney.
Singer Natalie Imbruglia will ring a bell for the start of the store's 102nd post-Christmas sale at 6.50am (0850 NZT), before the doors open at 7am.
Purchasing will have already begun in earnest across the road, with rival Myer opening its doors at 6am.
Most suburban stores will remain closed.
The big sellers this festive season have been electrical goods, including plasma televisions and MP3 players, while fashion sales have been softer.
Whitegoods and electricals, manchester and clothing are traditionally red-ticket items, prompting queues well before opening time.
Overall, figures from the Australian Retailers Association (ARA) show total retail spending in the six weeks to Christmas rose 7.4 per cent to A$36.5 billion.
But ARA executive director Richard Evans warned shoppers may just be using debt to fund their spending.
If so, the retail sector could face a slump early next year.
"The unfortunate thing about credit cards is that if it is actual debt as opposed to managing money they will be struggling from February, March, April, which may in fact affect retailing at that time," he said.
Australia's credit card debt was a record A$41.3 billion at the end of October, the latest Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) figures showed.
