Traders in the town reported an increase in sales in the two weeks leading up to Christmas as figures were released showing shoppers nationally spent more than £4bn on debit and credit cards during the same period.
The latest data from Northampton
firm Barclaycard records national transactions during the two-week period between December 19 and 31 totalling £4.09bn compared to £3.99bn in 2008, a recession-defying increase of 2.4 per cent. Post-Christmas spending was also up on last year, with the firm registering transactions totalling £1.68m against £1.64m during the same period in 2008.
Jonathan Williams, director of Montague Jeffery, an independent menswear store in St Giles Street, said he thought the increase was down to shoppers' determination to have a good Christmas in a what had been a difficult year.
He said: "I think Christmas will always win over. People will cut back in January, February and in the spring but Christmas is only once a year. People may possibly have cut back slightly on the number or size of presents or focused more on children but I don't think there was much talk of recession pre-Christmas."
But Mr Williams said sales had slowed dramatically after Christmas, due to a combination of the weather and people starting to tighten their belts after an indulgent Christmas.
He said: "It was very quiet and there wasn't a lot of footfall in the town centre. Before Christmas there were a lot of deals and discounts to be had and a lot of people wanting to buy before the VAT increase came in but, with the first couple of weeks of the sales out of the way now people are starting to get their credit card bills and need to tighten their belts."
Damien Lack, duty manager at 99p Stores in Gold Street, agreed. He said: "Running up to Christmas we did have more sales but they've dropped down again now, mainly due to the weather but also because after Boxing Day a lot of people don't want to come out because they've spent too much already. It seems people are still not spending due to the recession but I think it will pick up again soon."
The Christmas spending figures show the busiest pre-Christmas day was December 23, which saw £497m being spent.
After Christmas Day, sales peaked on December 29 at £376m. Christmas Day itself saw 700,000 transactions processed, a total spend of £24m. Activity peaked at 12.08pm with 32 transactions per second. Online activity registered turnover of £9.5m, a 17 per cent increase on Christmas Day in 2008.
