Australian shoppers flock to the Boxing Day sales despite poor sentiment

Retailers in Australia were delighted by a strong turnout of shoppers on Boxing Day, giving analysts further reason to suspect a turnaround in consumer sentiment.

Myer executive general manager stores, Tony Sutton, said the crowd through the doors at the Melbourne Bourke Street store at 5am looked like its biggest in a decade.

Accounting firm BDO reported that spending in the week before Christmas was up 13 percent on 2013. BDO national retail lead partner Simon Scalzo said the last few weeks of December had seen a shift in consumer sentiment and now more people were willing to spend.