Retailers tell us their best sellers.

Small appliance sales were down this Mother’s Day for Betta Home Living Kingaroy, located approximately 200km north-west of Brisbane, as consumers turned to personal care products for Mum this year, according to store manager, Chris Robins.

“Historically, we have sold a number of kettles and toasters in the lead-up to Mother’s Day. However, this year, personal care items such as hair care products and epilators were top of the list,” he said.

Robins also explained that electric blanket sales had been good over the past month, but heaters only just started to sell this week due to the unseasonal weather.

Meanwhile, Leading Appliances national group manager, Nicholas Fry (pictured below)  said the recent interest rate cut may have given consumer spending a boost, as sales for Mother’s Day were up year-on-year.

Leading-Appliances-Nick-Fry       Retailers tell us their best sellers.

“Personal care products were winners for Mum, with Philips and Remington leading the way in our stores. We promoted the ‘Don’t forget Mum’ Mother’s Day theme strongly in our catalogues, on our website, as well as through our very proactive eDM and social media platform, so we hope we encouraged our loyal customers to get into our stores and spoil their Mum. Our sales results would indicate this approach was effective,” he explained.

Fry also noted that there has been an upturn in sales of benchtop appliances such as slow cookers, pressure cookers and pizza makers.

“This may be due to the change of season into the colder winter months and I suspect consumers are enjoying staying indoors as the weather deteriorates and cooking up their own treats on their new appliances,” he said.

In Rosebud, Victoria David Barke Appliances owner, David Barke said he has also seen slow cookers and pressure cookers gain traction as the weather cools down in Melbourne.

“For Mother’s Day, customers purchased coffee machines in the last-minute rush and decided to steer clear of irons and vacuum cleaners. In the coffee category, we have seen a swing to high-end, manual machines, although pod machines are still popular among our customers,” he added.