Will last-minute rush make up for slow shopping season?
While many shoppers rushed to pick up last-minute Christmas gifts, this holiday season has been a quiet one for retail.
Such is the case for the family-run Apricot Lane boutique at the Galleria mall Dallas. While the store saw a steady stream of customers on Tuesday, this is a welcome change. According to store co-owner Alison Young, weather circumstances have made the shopping season rather icy.
“We had to close for about a day and a half, and there were two our biggest
days for the Christmas season, so those kind of set us back a little bit and
we've been working to make those sales figures up,” Young said.
“We were a little concerned when we lost the first weekend in December to
snow and ice. But I have just been talking to retailers and nine out of ten of
them tell me they have recovered from that and sales are up,” Freed said.
“Saturday was our busiest traffic day all year,” Freed explained. “We had fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, [but] people still had the same shopping lists.”
Nationwide sales are down this year, with retail sales dropping 3.1 percent last week compared to the same week in 2012. On the other hand, online sales jumped 37 percent.
All things considered, retailers hope the post-Christmas deals will make up for an otherwise lackluster shopping season.
