Local anecdote - went to the (newly opened) Canberra centre...

Local anecdote - went to the (newly opened) Canberra centre store yesterday, sort of busy but they still had lots of Christmas specific stock and talking to the staff they're well below sales targets (which she thinks are unreasonable as it's a new store). They still had some Christmas crackers available which isn't great (mostly these sell out + obviously are pretty useless to sell post Christmas) + these are a big volume mover. Wouldn't surprise me if total sales are between ~5-10% lower this festive season (+ potentially some margin hit due to greater discounting). Will be interesting to see if/how many stores become uneconomical - they might swing the axe and maybe move towards more 'pop up' stores in certain areas. With wages + the superannuation increases hitting totalling +5% each year the only thing they've really got to move on is rent.