Online shoppers warned to be wary of scammers as sales ramp up

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Australians will spend billions of dollars in the next four days in the Black Friday to Cyber-Monday sales. But we are all being warned to live within our means and also to watch out for online scams.

Transcript

00:00The orders are coming thick and fast for this activewear company, which started its Black

00:07Friday sales a week ago.

00:09Night one is, in the first hour, is always quite crazy.

00:13There's a lot of community online and we did break our app.

00:17It couldn't handle the traffic, which was quite fun, and we let our community down a

00:20little bit in that way.

00:21Four in ten Australians are expected to do all their Christmas shopping in this event.

00:26It's good.

00:27I like it.

00:28I'll have a bargain.

00:29I'll have some money.

00:30Why not?

00:31And also, it helps to have your presents purchased earlier, not last minute shopping.

00:36Australians are forecast to spend $6.7 billion in the Black Friday Cyber Monday sales.

00:42That's the biggest on record, and a 5.5% increase compared to this time a year ago.

00:48All up, including this event, shoppers are expected to fork out nearly $12 billion on

00:54presents in the lead up to Christmas.

00:56Many of the discretionary retailers make about two thirds of their profits during the

01:00peak season trading period, so there's a lot riding on it.

01:03So live within your means.

01:04It's going to be a debt that you need to think about paying.

01:08There's also a warning about falling victim to online scams.

01:12If you see an offer that you think that offer is just too good to be true, it probably is.

01:18Black Friday to Cyber Monday is the first major sales period since the stage three tax

01:23cuts came into effect.

01:25So we'll be watching closely to see how that impacts inflation and the timing of interest

01:29rate cuts by the Reserve Bank.

01:31Black Friday sales have crept into more and more of the month.

01:35That's going to show that prices fell for a little longer.

01:38But just because prices fall for a one-off sales event doesn't mean that inflation is

01:43falling enough.

01:44Meaning the delivery of the first interest rate cut likely won't land until next year.

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