The best bargains in the festive sales might not be available until January 5 as record numbers of items bought online are returned to retailers.
Bargain-hunters are believed to have favoured online orders over the high street on Boxing Day as they looked to cash in on discounts in the traditional post-Christmas period sales.
But one expert in online returns believes many items that retailers want to get rid of are either sitting in warehouses or still to be returned.
That will mean shops having to get rid of millions of items in the New Year and likely to offer big discounts.
Vicky Brock, from the online returns company Clear Returns, said: “This has been a record breaking year for online sales in the lead up to Christmas and there is a lot of stock either still in people’s homes or locked up in warehouses.
“We are likely to see a second wave of bargains when it all re-emerges next week. Items could well have an extra 35% off existing discounts, so rock bottom prices as retailers need to shift it by then.”
Footfall in high streets and shopping centres across the country on Boxing Day was said to be lower than expected, though some centres saw shoppers queuing ahead of stores opening from as early as 6am.
But online sales on the day after Christmas have grown by an estimated 6.2% from Boxing Day last year.
The growth in online shopping has been followed by an increase in the number of items being returned, with many customers said to have adopted a “buy now, decide later” mentality.
Some retail companies are now using technology to sort customers into “keepers” and “returners”, and only offering the biggest discounts online to shoppers who are less likely to send back items bought on a whim.
Bad weather and the growth of online sales led to a disappointing December for many stores on the high street, and retailers will be hoping for a good Christmas to claw back some of that lost revenue.
The Ipsos Retail Performance Retail Traffic Index said that the number of shoppers on the high street footfall was down 9.9% on last year over the first three weeks of the month, while the CBI Distributive Trades Survey reported a weaker-than-expected rise in retail sales in the year to December.