The car parks are full, shoppers clutching armfuls of bags walk through the mall, and the mingling sound of two buskers playing carols drifts in the air.
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It certainly looks a lot like Christmas in Wollongong's CBD, but - as across the nation - the mood and spending is looking more subdued than usual.
The increased popularity of pre-Christmas sales such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday, as well as a growing push towards mindful consumerism has meant even the main retail hubs in Sydney's CBD have seen fewer crowds.
For one retailer inside Wollongong Central, these factors, along with the normalisation of online shopping and the mood created by national bushfire crisis has contributed to a quieter than usual lead up to Christmas.
"I also think a lot of stores have done online exclusives, because that's just where people do most of their shopping now," she said.
"Black Friday has taken over from any of the days in the lead up to Christmas, so the weekend just gone was so quiet."
Likewise, staff at The Source - a packaging-free bulk foods store - say traffic in the lower mall has been slower than normal. However, they have also seen large numbers of shoppers seeking sustainable gift options.
"People seem to be looking for alternatives to the usual gifts - they're making it themselves, doing something more personalised," Grace Stovin-Bradford said.
"There's lots of people saying they don't want to give their family just more 'stuff', so people want practical or perishable gifts that don't contribute to that waste."
Despite these anecdotes from retailers, the Wollongong Central management, GPT, said foot traffic in the mall was "similar to last year".
"Wollongong Central has seen approximately 360,000 shoppers in the centre in the past week, with crowd numbers expected to peak [Monday and Tuesday]," a spokesman said.
"Anecdotally, retailers are telling us they're busy in the lead-up to Christmas. This will be followed by Boxing Day sales, where circa 55,000 customers are expected through the doors..."
In Shellharbour, Stockland's manager Daniel Buchanan said the centre had seen "strong patronage" in the lead up to Christmas, with people seeking the "experience" of physical stores over online gift buying.
"Our Stockland Christmas survey this year has supported this, with 81 per cent of the 1,170 respondents saying that they will continue to purchase a majority of their gifts at a physical store," he said.