T’was the season

Another festive season has come and gone. Here, James wraps up what was the largest Christmas week on record.

The lead-in to Christmas this year was not without its challenges. Customers were overwhelmed with messages of cost of living pressures, while at the same time Cyber Weekend posted the biggest result on record with experts predicting 25% of Christmas sales now happen during this week.

Cycling last year’s Omicron outbreak in December, customers could also now enjoy more occasions spread across both the on and off premise environments.

But the big news was the weather. The liquor category faced poor weather conditions with 33% higher rainfall across the nation and a cold front that resulted in average temperatures far cooler than the previous year. We even had snow in some alpine regions.

Despite these headwinds, we delivered record breaking weeks for Christmas and New year’s.