STORE owners are hoping for a bumper weekend as shoppers buy their last-minute Christmas gifts.
Huddersfield shopkeepers hope the tills will ring, boosting predicted lower than usual pre-Christmas sales.
National predictions suggest like-for-like sales up less than one per cent in November compared with a year ago. These indicate a sluggish festive season - unless there's a last-minute rush.
And figures show we intend to spend five per cent less than last year on Christmas gifts.
The Switch Cost of Christmas survey shows shoppers will spend £868 each on presents, cards, accessories and food and drink - that's just £6 more than last year.
But Kingsgate shopping centre manager Jonathan Hardy said sales looked likely to be 17% up on last year.
He said tills were ringing across the board with electrical goods being popular and the new Waterstones book shop being very well received.
He said this weekend would be busy although extended opening times next week till 8pm on Monday and Tuesday meant people still had lots of time to buy their Christmas gifts.
Huddersfield town centre manager David Wyles said Sunday shopping had been the busiest it had ever been in the town.
He said car parks had kept busy, particularly at weekends.
Mr Wyles said there was also a magical atmosphere in the town during Thursday late night shopping. This had been enhanced by a popular and successful shoppers' train service.
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