The huge Westfield London mall in Shepherd’s Bush will stay open until midnight on Monday to cope with what is predicted to be the biggest-ever last-minute Christmas shopping rush.
Stores will carry on serving customers throughout the evening for the busiest shopping day of the year.
Myf Ryan, Westfield’s UK marketing director, said “We’re noticing that consumers are increasingly time-poor and people simply aren’t able to leave work early for Christmas shopping because of increased work pressures.
“We hope that extending our opening hours to accommodate for the last-minute shopping rush will help take the stress out of shopping.”
The shopping centre will also open from 8am until 6pm on Christmas Eve, before shutting for Christmas Day. The sister Westfield mall in Stratford City will stay open until 11pm every day except Sunday until Christmas Eve, when it closes its doors at 6pm.
Many West End stores will stay open until 10pm on Monday. Fortnum & Mason in Piccadilly started trading until 10pm every night from December 12 until Sunday. It will close at 5.30pm on Christmas Eve.
Sally Eden, of the New West End Company, said: “This Monday West End retailers will welcome two different types of shopper — Londoners and visiting international customers. This kind of last-minute shopping historically sees our retailers benefiting from sales of accessories, perfume, jewellery and beauty products — easy and quick to pick up.”
Card payment company Visa Europe predicts that around £1.2billion will be spent on Britain’s high streets on Monday, equivalent to £862,500 a minute or around £15,000 per second.
Jeremy Nicholds, Visa director of commercial development, said that the spike in demand would mirror “the rush to shop online at the beginning of the month”.
Last weekend the two Westfield shopping malls reported their busiest Saturday and Sunday of the year.
