Myer performed strongly in retail during the holiday season despite a week-long website outage and heavy competition, including competitive online-only offers from David Jones, new research from Pocketbook shows.
An analysis of anonymous aggregate data from nearly 18,000 Australian Pocketbook users reveals spending at Myer was up 92% from November, while David Jones performed marginally better at 108%.
"December is a critical month in the strategy for both retailers, so it's surprising to see that even with the most devastating website outage, Myer was able to stay with the competition," says Bosco Tan, co-founder of Pocketbook.
Offline retail dominated December spending
A key reason for this is that offline retail spending greatly outperformed online in December.
"We saw a doubling of offline retail spending, while online stayed steady. This is evidence that Australians still look for last-minute gifts at physical stores and love going out shopping, rather than clicking on Boxing Day sales," said Mr Tan.
The study found that the stocktake success heavily skewed towards offline retailers. Daily transactions after December 27th were up 32% at David Jones and 28% at Myer – in stark contrast to a 16% reduction for online fashion retailers ASOS and The Iconic. Electronics also showed similar results, with Harvey Norman up 59% compared to a 26% increase for Kogan.
Additionally, average purchase size offline at $80 beats out the average online order of $55.
Australians increased their debt spending in December
To fund this December retail activity, the study found that Australians spend 10% more on their credit cards, and doubled their discretionary spending in December compared to previous months. Principally spending occured on gift items (books, gadgets and clothing) and entertainment (drinks and movies). The average gift was $65, with each person spending $374 on gift giving.
