Some city businesses are optimistic that their promotional events will bring in shoppers this holiday season, leading to better sales than last year, although one had an altogether more pessimistic outlook.
While two of the five business managers who spoke to Stabroek News this week expressed concern about the amount of disposable income consumers will have available to them for the holidays, this did not entirely daunt their overall projections for the season.
Managing Director Edward Boyer of National Hardware (Guyana) Ltd said that the Christmas sales could be last minute or start next week. “I don’t want to pre-empt,” he said, adding that in some years the holiday sales began slowly but later picked up.
Boyer said this holiday the store will be keeping prices affordable, to correspond with consumers’ disposable income.
National Hardware is now in the preparation stage for the holidays, but this month and next month there will be a ‘Holiday Roll Back Prices’ beginning tomorrow. And tomorrow it will be beginningi its Sneak Peek promotion, where there will be reductions on certain items for two hours.
These promotions will be held at both National Hardware locations, that is, the Supercentre at Industrial Site Ruimveldt, and at the Water Street outlet.
Singer Guyana Inc Manager Eric Whaul said that the store was expecting its usual good sales, since it had better prices, hire purchase terms and warranties. The store was offering a one year warranty on workmanship for furniture, and a three year warranty on the manufacturer’s workmanship on refrigerators.
There was also a Singer promotion, he said, where hire purchase and cash customers could win $100,000 daily when they purchased from the store, and if there was no winner this would roll-over to the next day.
“Things are looking quite good, actually,” said Courts Guyana Inc Manager Lester Alvis, giving his store’s projection for the season.
Throughout the year Courts had held promotions, said Alvis, which had contributed to their product range across board being well received.
As examples he cited their electronic items, such as Plasma television sets and extended ranges of furniture and carpets. In terms of customer service, Courts this year had also worked on training and development for its staff and this Alvis believed, had also led customers to respond positively. Among the promotions that Courts had for the holidays was the ‘Stash of Cash’ which was “drawing a lot of sales.”
With the purchase of $30,000 and above customers had the opportunity to win up to one million dollars in cash, this month and next month. There was some $9M remaining to be won, as of Friday.
Nevertheless, Alvis noted that the really “big figures” (in relation to sales) had not come through as yet, although the company was very optimistic, and expected sales to be better than last year.
Giftland Office Max Chief Executive Officer Ian Ramdeo told this newspaper that based on their experience, they were expecting to see an increase over last year’s sales. However, he noted that at the same time, shopping patterns had been affected by rising prices, and in Guyana disposal income was “not as adequate.”
Promotions for the holiday season had begun at Giftland earlier than last year and the CEO said this year they were better prepared, since last year the store had been under expansion.
So what of prices at the store this season?
Ramdeo said in some cases prices remained the same, had been reduced or slightly increased. Even though world prices were rising, he explained that the store negotiated with suppliers for better prices.
“We try to keep things affordable for the customers,” he said.
While Giftland did not have many complaints, the sales in-between the holidays were only average. For example, the back to school sales were said to be good, but the October month sales not as good.
Consumers cannot yet shop at Giftland’s online site with their credit cards, but can place their orders online and pay cash on delivery. For the past eight months Giftland has worked with its bank to offer its customers access to online shopping.
A large city businessman who asked not to be named noted simply “money ain’t deh” and the 9% increase given to public servants would not increase the disposable income for shoppers.
He explained that consumers had to face increased prices for oil, milk, cheese, butter, flour and fuel, while manufacturers and importers were facing rising production costs coupled with increased fuel and freight charges.
Come this holiday season this businessman was predicting that as persons spent more on food, building materials and gas, city businesses would not see big holiday sales.
This businessman believed that unless the government increased the tax threshold, allowing persons to have more disposable income, sales would continue to slump. The tax threshold is currently $28,000.
