Retailers cautiously optimistic that ‘brutal’ Christmas sales in past
Edmonton store owners say they are cautiously optimistic of an improved Christmas shopping season this year as retail sales in Alberta continue to advance upwards.
“We are hopeful this Christmas season will be much better than the past three Christmas seasons have been. It’s been pretty brutal,” said Carol Logan, owner of Carol’s Quality Sweets at 12519 102 Ave.
After low oil prices last year dragged the province’s economy down, local retailers said they have seen customers return and sales start to climb ahead of the Christmas season.
“We’ve decided to try to have the best selection we can afford in order to be prepared for what we hope is a slightly better December than last year,” said Steve Budnarchuk, co-owner of Audreys Books Ltd. at 10702 Jasper Ave.
Recent numbers from Statistics Canada show a 7.6 per cent increase in retail sales in Alberta in September compared with September 2016. Sales climbed 0.3 per cent between August and September this year.
“It really has picked up,” said Sarah Irwin, sales associate and manager at When Pigs Fly at 10470 82 Ave.
Irwin said sales at the gift shop are up around 20 per cent over last year, and the customers coming in are buying bigger ticket items.
“Our biggest sales usually end up going to our cards and little trinkety things, but people are getting more useful things — pots, umbrella holders — fairly big ticket items, which has been quite nice and it’s a bit different than what we’ve seen from previous years,” she said.
Online retail sales jumped 16.7 per cent in September 2017 when compared with the year prior, which bookstore co-owner Budnarchuk said is putting pressure on small, bricks-and-mortar local businesses.
“While we haven’t fully recovered from that, we’ve survived it,” Budnarchuk said.
Asked what shoppers value most about having a healthy local business community, each of the owners offered a different view.
Budnarchuk said the value in shopping locally is about maintaining choice in the retail market place, while Irwin suggested the benefit was in keeping local dollars in the local economy. As for Logan, he said small local businesses offer a level of personal service that large retailers can’t match.
“We want to maintain being able to give individual service to customers,” Logan said. “If small businesses don’t succeed, we are not going to have the small business that really cares about your dollar, because they won’t survive.”
We’ve decided to try to have the best selection we can afford in order to be prepared.