Traditional ‘late shopping’ took on a new dimension this Christmas as hundreds of urban shoppers poured into the city on Christmas Day to conclude what the business community says was, up until Christmas Eve day, a lacklustre commercial season.
From as early as 6 am on Christmas Day the traditional vending areas around all of the city’s municipal markets were busy with vending taking on a Saturday morning appearance.
Incessant rain over the previous two weeks had raised fears that greens and vegetables, usually in high seasonal demand, might be scarce. The evidence of last Christmas Day, however, suggested otherwise. Vendors with whom Stabroek Business spoke said that they had no fears that there might be a scarcity of greens over Christmas.
In downtown Georgetown several stores were doing a brisk trade in toys as some workers, many of them security guards and mini bus drivers on their way home from work sought to take home some Christmas cheer with them. The proprietor of a Camp Street store that attracted a stream of mid-morning customers told Stabroek Business that he had anticipated some level of Christmas Day shopping. He said that his store had taken account of the fact that because of the nature of their jobs a number of people would not have had time to go to the shops during the traditional shopping period.
With the City Mall open up to midnight on Christmas Eve night a steady stream of people poured into the facility. While the food and ice cream parlours did a brisk trade, however, proprietors of stores on the upper floors of the facility were pointing out that the number of people in the Mall was no reflection of the extent of trading.
During the weeks preceding Christmas, businessmen complained about sluggish trading which they were blaming mostly on the advent of the Value Added Tax and price increases for imported foods during 2007.
