THOUSANDS more shoppers are expected in Southampton today after a bumper day's business on Boxing Day.

Tills were ringing out once again as tens of thousands of shoppers brushed off the hangover of Christmas – and headed out to splash the cash in the sales.

Shop workers had had just a few hours off from the Christmas mayhem as queues to get hold of a Boxing Day bargain began to form outside WestQuay as early as 1.30am.

And by the time the first stores opened their doors at 6am more than 400 people were waiting to spend their Christmas money.

First in line were Southampton mums and best friends Khadiji Iqbal and Marzia Rahimi who arrived at the shopping centre in the early hours of the morning and lavished their children with £700 worth of clothes and gifts after the shops opened.

Some shoppers travelled miles to get their hands on the bargains including Sam Lee and his girlfriend Emma Rogers, 22, a teaching assistant from West Wittering.

The 22-year-old chef said: “We just came to look at a few sales. We usually go to see family but we’re not this year so we’re shopping instead. We came to WestQuay because there’s more choice here than in Chichester or Portsmouth. We have mostly bought clothes.”

A spokesman from WestQuay said: "Boxing Day is renowned for being the most popular sales day of the year and, despite the Black Friday trend having been embraced by UK retailers particularly here at WestQuay people still see Boxing Day as a great opportunity to get their hands on a bargain and burn off all the turkey from the day before.

Daily Echo:

“Christmas trading has been strong and on Monday alone our footfall was up 12.3 per cent compared to last year with 95,812 people walking through our doors.

“As the John Lewis Clearance kicks off on Saturday we anticipate the bargain hunting to continue over the weekend."