Slow Christmas sales worry business owners in San Fernando

Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­[email protected]

Less than two weeks be­fore Christ­mas, there was no hus­tle and bus­tle at the main shop­ping cen­tre—High Street, San Fer­nan­do, yes­ter­day—caus­ing con­cern among some busi­ness own­ers.

Shop own­ers say they have re­duced prices to at­tract bar­gain-hunt­ing cus­tomers, not­ing that shop­pers are look­ing for deals more than ever this sea­son.

De­spite the slow sales, Ki­ran Singh, pres­i­dent of the Greater San Fer­nan­do Area Cham­ber of Com­merce, said the pat­tern ap­peared to be nor­mal. “High Street tra­di­tion­al­ly sees last-minute shop­pers,” Singh said. “We ex­pect sales to pick up clos­er to Christ­mas.”

“Shop­ping hasn’t picked up as yet. Tri­nis tend to be last-minute. So, with two weeks to go, we ex­pect we will see an in­crease from to­mor­row, Mon­day. Now that schools have closed and the Gov­ern­ment has an­nounced that pub­lic ser­vants will get some sort of salary in­crease and back­pay would be com­ing, that will in­spire shop­ping in down­town San Fer­nan­do in the com­ing days.”

How­ev­er, Natasha Best, own­er of an ap­par­el store, ad­mit­ted she was wor­ried, not­ing that she has been sell­ing on High Street since she was a teenag­er and that, so far, sales were the worst she has seen.

“Christ­mas this year, I feel like it can­celled be­cause the sales are ter­ri­ble. Every­body stock up for busi­ness, and cus­tomers like they don’t have the fi­nances, so we just have the goods wait­ing there. If you look at the streets, it’s ter­ri­ble, and we not get­ting a dis­count in rent or any­thing.”

She sug­gest­ed that the au­thor­i­ties re­strict ve­hic­u­lar traf­fic along High Street and trans­form it in­to a strict­ly pedes­tri­an zone to en­cour­age shop­ping. She al­so be­lieves an­oth­er de­ter­rent was the lack of park­ing.

At Miguel Moses and the Christ­mas Flea Mar­ket, staff were con­fi­dent that sales would in­crease. Miguel Moses’ work­ers ex­plained that their em­ploy­er, aware of the fi­nan­cial hard­ships fac­ing peo­ple this year, had de­cid­ed to slash prices. “You will not find any bet­ter prices than here,” said one work­er proud­ly. Cus­tomer Gillian McIn­tosh, who was shop­ping for com­forter sets and cur­tains, agreed. “It’s prices re­al­ly good, is one of the best,” she said.

Floor man­ag­er Seema Roop­nar­ine at the Christ­mas Flea Mar­ket said many peo­ple were just win­dow shop­ping, but they ex­pect sales to in­crease by this week. Roop­nar­ine not­ed that gel blasters, dolls, scoot­ers, and bi­cy­cles were some of their hot sell­ers.

“In gen­er­al, a lot of peo­ple are look­ing for deals. We have good deals. So far no­body has com­plained about the prices yet, so we are hop­ing for good sales,” she said.

Usha Ram­sa­roop, who was shop­ping with her grand­son, said this Christ­mas she was not buy­ing toys, but books or clothes. “They re­al­ly re­duce the prices a lit­tle bit,” she said. An­oth­er shop­per, Shree­ma­tee Rack­al, who was al­so shop­ping for clothes, had a dif­fer­ent opin­ion. “Last year was bet­ter than this year in terms of the prices,” she said.

With Christ­mas draw­ing near, busi­ness own­ers were hope­ful that the fi­nal days be­fore the hol­i­day would bring the crowds they were count­ing on.