Christmas trade boost for local businesses

NOELLE FINEGAN

Traders around the county have reported a brisk Christmas and New Year’s Trade, with footfall in the run up to Christmas up on last year. 

While some traders reported a slow start to December, the increasing popularity of the Black Friday sales at the end of November, is likely to have taken some of the traditional December trade.
Pat Mullaney, Manager of Navan Town Centre said traders were very nervous for the first two weeks of December and it didn’t seem like the normal run-up to Christmas at all. 
However, he said during Christmas week they saw a massive boost with footfall up 12.1 per cent ahead of last year. “We would have expected footfall to be up with an extra two days but the national average footfall was up 8.6 per cent so we are still almost four per cent ahead of the national average which is great boost.”
From talking to traders he said the general feeling was that it would be difficult to match last year’s sales for December.
“Black Friday is now a very significant event in the calender which is in November, rather than the traditional 8th December. This would have sucked a bit of the December money.”
Businesses are also facing direct online competition and the Sterling rate is making it more attractive to shop online.
“The sales after Christmas have been fantastic and there has been a real burst. The sales have been very busy and successful. Stock levels are getting low which is a good thing to make way for new stock,” he said.
According to Mr Mullaney on St Stephen’s Day, 12,000 people came through the doors of the shopping centre and this increased to 19,000 on 27th December.
“Overall we are very happy with the sales. My gut feeling for the most part is that sales are similar to last year but may be slightly down. However Black Friday on 25th November was a huge trading weekend so I think if traders looked at November and December combined, it would be very close to last year.”
In Kells, the new year sales have been “going brilliantly”, according to Jess Olohan of Kells Chamber and she also said shops had reported a good couple of days sales before Christmas. “One or two shops said it was slow to start but they got a good run into Christmas and now they are absolutely flying.
“Some traders felt the sales were on a par with last year but others felt they had done better than last year. In some shops, they felt people had held off before Christmas to wait for the sales.”
“They all had a good Christmas, especially the last few days. The shops were very busy the day before Christmas Eve and Christmas Eve with a lot of people home for Christmas coming out to shop locally.”
Before Christmas, Kells Chamber ran its ‘Shop Happy in Kells’ initiative. Ms Olohan explained that the Chamber put up 1,000 in prize money and customers in each shop put their name into a draw with each purchase and were eligible to go forward to win €1,000 of Kells Shopping vouchers. Ms Olohan said the initiative was very successful.