WITH spending over Christmas higher than ever before and stores reporting record numbers of customers queueing up for their sales from the early hours, Manchester shoppers are showing no sign of consumer fatigue. But which shops are doing best and what is everyone buying?

John Lewis saw shoppers snap up 11 pillows, 40 tea towels and 14 saucepans every minute during their first week of clearance é and enough mattresses to cover four football pitches.

Sales of china at the Trafford Centre store were up 13 per cent on last year, glassware was up 17 per cent, while white tableware was up 43 per cent.

Healthy

Getting healthy as well as fresh post-Christmas must be a key New Year's resolution, with steamers, woks and pressure cookers up 14 per cent on last year. Looking good is of course as much of a priority as ever too.

And half-price men's cashmere jumpers flew off the shelves at a rate of one every two minutes, up 134 per cent on last year. Maggie Porteous, managing director of John Lewis Trafford, said:

éOur store enjoyed a very buoyant Christmas trading period with sales in December ahead of the same period last year by 15.6 per cent. This has carried through into the January clearance.

éAfter the first seven days our sales are up 16.4 per cent on last year.é

éStrong clearance lines include sets of classic white china which sold out last week (290 sets), coloured glass at good price points (1,000 pieces) and fashion and menswear with excellent value ranges on handbags and ladies' shoes.é

Specific bestsellers included 50 per cent off selected D&G watches, a Molton Brown Special Purchase Set at é20 and Capiz Hourglass Pendants, down to é25 from é55.

Trafford-tastic

The Trafford Centre itself witnessed a three per cent increase in visitor numbers on Boxing Day compared with last year. Boxing Day went off to a fantastic start with people queued for the shops opening from as early as 5am, and over the following week the centre experienced some of the busiest sales days on record, with around 141,000 visitors per day.

Gordon McKinnon, director of operations, said: éThis week has continued where last week left off. We are still extremely busy and still very much in sale mode. We expect this to continue while children are off school.é

éLast week we saw an increase of four per cent in the number of people visiting the centre compared to the same week last year é which amounted to three quarters of a million people.é

Debenhams reports men's John Rocha gift sets and stationery sets doing particularly well, and Pineapple puffa jackets in the children's department and, all kinds of jackets for adults, in particular the Designers at Debenhams range was also selling well.

Splashing out

Selfridges Trafford has found Marc Jacobs and Euphoria cosmetics, Paul Smith, Hugo Boss, Prada and Armani jeans, and Ralph Lauren knitwear all extremely popular this year. Over at
Selfridges Exchange Square, store manager Mark Limby says: éWe had a record start to the winter sale, with bigger crowds than ever on Boxing Day.

éThe key menswear brands selling particularly well are Armani Jeans, Paul Smith and Men's Spirit brands.

éWomenswear has also seen excellent sales and we have almost run out of luxury brands accessories such as Prada, Gucci and Chloe.

Rock and Republic and Juicy have proved to be the biggest sellers on the casual side. Shoppers are still keen to grab a designer bargain snapping up DVF dresses as well as separates from the DKNY and Nicole Fahri collections.

"Bestsellers have included the Issa Zurich Dress, reduced from é527 to é63.50, a McQ denim skirt (down from é116 to é58), and the Stella Batwing Stripe Dress.

Improvement

Last year's record for the first morning trading hours was increased by 15 per cent, with queues forming before 8am.

Hundreds of customers rushed into the store as soon as the doors opened and instantly filled up the ground floor's Ladies Accessories Hall, this year's sale most popular area so far.
The first item sold was a Chloe Betty Brown Python leather handbag (down from é1,796 to é898).

This was followed another luxury investment' buy, a Mulberry Phoebe bag (originally é595, now a third off at é416.50).

On the first morning of House of Fraser's sale they cleared 17 rails of stock on the first floor fashion department, with discounts of up to 60 per cent.

General manager Jeff Johnson says: éWe had an outstanding first day for our sale with customers queuing outside before the doors opened.

With so many clearance offers on everything from fashion to furnishings, people were leaving the store with armloads of bags."

Heaving

"All our floors were packed with shoppers and we had to introduce traffic management controls around the lifts and escalators areas to help the flow of customers.

Most people seemed in really good humour though. On the first floor young fashion department fantastic designer reductions included D&G tops down from é150 to é20.

It was phenomenally busy down in menswear, too, with designer wear offers including men's D&G shirts down from é145 to é20.

Elsewhere in store, electrical appliances were being snapped up é with a Panasonic 26é LCD television slashed in price from é799 to é549.

Manchester shoppers love the sales and we have certainly not seen any sign of retail gloom.

We've even had people stocking up for next Christmas, buying packs of half-price Christmas cards.é

Harvey Nichols

The sales have also been a great time for trading at Harvey Nichols, with people using them to invest in key pieces that will last.

Good sellers have been handbags é classic Chloe styles like the Betty and the Edith have been items customers have splashed out on while prices are down.

Perfumery has also been popular. Men's suiting has also performed well; again the classic styles are most popular, with customers are using sales to shop sensibly rather than just bargain hunting.

Sale time has been busy this year, especially the first day, we even had a crowd around the door waiting for us to open at 9am,é says store manager Iain Mackenzie.

"We had a very buoyant run-up to Christmas anyway and Sale time has been busy this year. The first week and a half of the sales has certainly met expectations, but then again we have had some really great bargains.é

Arndale excitment

Over at the Arndale Centre, a far better Christmas than anticipated meant that some retailers were left a bit short for the sales due to buying so prudently.

The sales, when they came, saw some significant reductions in terms of percentage (up to 70 per cent) despite the quantity of stock being limited.

For the second time, the sale started on Boxing Day, where footfall increased by 20 per cent on last year, with just short of 100,000 people piling in.

On December 27, the first full day of the sale, Next opened at 5am and a queue of shoppers started building at 3am. By 5am well over 1,000 people were inside Next grabbing the first goodies.

"There was also some pretty sophisticated sales shopping going on, with people taking each load of purchases back to their cars and then returning in time for the opening of the next store.é

More than 180,000 people visited the Arndale on the 27th making it the biggest day in its history.

Old favourite

As well as Next, family favourite Marks & Spencer was seen to be doing particularly well.

éWhat Stuart Rose is doing from the top is organising a very profitable company,é Glen continued.

éThe residual product after an extraordinary Christmas was somewhat limited, so I'd say they had an extremely successful Christmas supported by a better than anticipated sale.é

For the Arndale stores In general, fashion and CDs have been the biggest sales sellers, with the centre shifting in excess of a quarter of a million CDs a week over the past month. That's a lot of Leona Lewisé