It is likely to fill those embarking on retail therapy in the Boxing Day sales with woe, but a study has discovered that carrying heavy shopping bags increases mental stress.
Christmas Eve failed to meet retailers expectations
Researchers found shoppers physically weighed down with groceries, clothes or gifts subconsciously thought more about serious or weightier subjects.
It comes as retailers waited anxiously for today’s sales after the swarm of last-minute shoppers on Christmas Eve failed to meet expectations.
A bumper Boxing Day would settle nerves on the high street, where quarterly rent payments were due yesterday, but the new study suggests shoppers hoping to stock up on cut-price deals may get less satisfaction than they bargained for.
Academics from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the National University of Singapore discovered that heavier shopping loads led to “more important and more stressful” thoughts.
The study in the forthcoming edition of the Journal of Consumer Research concluded that this was due to the brain being wired in such a way that physical weight influenced a person’s “psychological weight”.
The New West End Company, which represents retailers on London’s Oxford, Bond and Regent streets, expects 700,000 people to descend on the area today, despite a Tube strike. Shoppers are forecast to spend around £50 million.
Although the growth of internet shopping will see more bargain hunters make their purchases online this year, stores are still braced for large queues with Selfridges expecting up to 2,000 people to queue from 5am. Debenhams was opening its 164 stores at 7am.
After a slow start to the month, retailers had been pinning their hopes on a wave of late shoppers in the run-up to Christmas. But after a strong day on Friday the turnout on Saturday was described as “disappointing”.
The number of shoppers was down by almost five per cent on the same date last year, which was a Friday, according to Experian, a credit scoring agency.
Footfall on the high street on Christmas Eve was almost 16 per cent lower than the previous Saturday, which remained the busiest shopping day of 2011.
Richard Dodd, of the British Retail Consortium, said: “The figures will be disappointing for retailers and will leave them with extra catching up to do so they will be putting even more hope into the post-Christmas sales performance.”
Source:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/8977579/Heavier-bags-mean-more-stress.html
Although the growth of internet shopping will see more bargain hunters make their purchases online this year, stores are still braced for large queues with Selfridges expecting up to 2,000 people to queue from 5am. Debenhams was opening its 164 stores at 7am.
After a slow start to the month, retailers had been pinning their hopes on a wave of late shoppers in the run-up to Christmas. But after a strong day on Friday the turnout on Saturday was described as “disappointing”.
The number of shoppers was down by almost five per cent on the same date last year, which was a Friday, according to Experian, a credit scoring agency.
Footfall on the high street on Christmas Eve was almost 16 per cent lower than the previous Saturday, which remained the busiest shopping day of 2011.
Richard Dodd, of the British Retail Consortium, said: “The figures will be disappointing for retailers and will leave them with extra catching up to do so they will be putting even more hope into the post-Christmas sales performance.”
Source:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/8977579/Heavier-bags-mean-more-stress.html
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