WELSH SHOPPERS ARE OUT IN FORCE
TENS of thousands of shoppers descended on Wales’ shops and retail parks yesterday in one of the busiest shopping days of the year. Retailers across Wales reported long queues and ringing tills as people tried to avoid a last-minute Christmas shopping rush next week.
According to Steven Madeley, general manager of St David’s in Cardiff, people came in their thousands. He said: “The Christmas shopping season so far has been busy at St David’s. We’re seeing a real buzz in the centre, as tens of thousands of shoppers plan to make the most of one of the last weekends before Christmas.”
Trends are constantly changing – shoes and jewellery have been the most popular presents for festive shoppers to date.
“Footwear and jewellery have been particularly popular so far and customers are also making a beeline for stocking fillers,” said Mr Madeley.
“Beauty products continue to be increasingly popular and we’ve welcomed a number of new brands throughout the centre in recent months.
“We’re thrilled to also see shoppers embrace the spirit of giving at Christmas and donating generously to our Toy Appeal – we have already received more than 2,000 more donations than this time last year.
“Looking forward to the coming week, we will see lots of consumers taking advantage of our extended opening hours as the window for online shopping closes.
“With Christmas falling on a Monday we’ll also see lots of last-minute shoppers during the final weekend.”
St Catherine’s Walk Shopping Centre in Carmarthen reported a surge in customers yesterday on what is thought to have been the busiest day of the year so far.
Centre manager John Nash said: “It is probably the busiest day of the year. Normally it is the weekend before Christmas which is the busiest but this has been very busy.
“There have been queues everywhere. It is quite nice to see.”
But some independent retailers have not reported as much trade.
George Osztreicher is the managing director of Crane’s music shop, which has branches in Cardiff and Swansea.
He said: “In the Swansea shop it has been about par compared to last year. Not more, not less, but par. Historically we normally make twice as much in the next two weeks as we did in the last two weeks.”
However, according to Mr Osztreicher it could be as much down to the specific challenges of his industry.
“We opened in Swansea 11 years ago and there were four other music
shops in town,” he said. “Now we are the only one and we are not taking any more money than we did then.
“Across the UK half the music dealers have closed down. The kiss of death for us was the skateboard.
“Everyone wanted them instead of the guitar – then it was the Sony PlayStation.”