Recently, I bought items at the MYR Melbourne CBD store 5th...

Recently, I bought items at the MYR Melbourne CBD store 5th floor boxed food small area that sells hampers, boxed biscuits, cakes, confectionery, packaged sauces, all intended as Christmas gifts.

Assuming that the cash register records transactions sequentially with transaction number one followed by number two (i.e. no gaps in the numbering), there appear to have been just under 850 transactions in a 49 hour period, so around 400 per nine hour trading day (i.e. 540 minutes).

This seems a lot but suggests that at busier times, there's a queue. Even if there were only 200 transactions (i.e. only every 2nd number was used as in i, 3, 5...) that's still quite a lot, bearing in mind it isn't yet Advent Sunday.

As always we lack data on the median amount of a sale, but these food gifts are mostly above A$15 a pop.

On a few visits, the two cafes in this flagship MYR store seem to be doing a very good trade, so that's another reasonable indication. On Sunday morning 19 November 2023 there was a queue of eight to 10 at the Brunetti cafe with its quite high prices and large offering of coffee/tea accompaniments. The barista was run off his feet.

There's media to suggest spending by retirees is continuing to rise above the alleged CPI of 5.4 per cent, but the age bracket of 25-29 is feeling the pinch. While CEO Mr King suggests demographics for MYR are changing as many young shoppers are attracted to MYR, a heck of a lot of older folk shop at the company. Maybe this augurs reasonably well for the prospects of Black Friday and Christmas sales.