For many gifts retailers, it was a slow run up to Christmas, not helped by the weather – rain in November, snow in December, postal and rail strikes and, of course, the cost of living crisis which, predictably saw consumer spend less than many gift stores would have liked. So did it all finally come together?
“We had the best Christmas ever here which really surprised me!” enthused Caroline Ranwell, owner of Hugs & Kisses, Tettenhall. “I expected to be considerably down this year, firstly because of the postal strikes, and secondly, the fact that having opened my new clothing boutique, we now don’t have as many clothes or handbags in the shop as we did in 2021. It was therefore absolutely amazing that, despite these two factors, our sales were considerably up on the previous year, and we did really well with all our gifts this year.”
She continued: “Nevertheless, the Royal Mail strikes really affected online sales, but I do think that, in another way, it also drove customers to ‘shop local’, thereby helping to counter gift and card sales in the shop.”
Jo Barber, owner of No. 14 Ampthill, in Ampthill, admitted: “I was starting to feel twitchy about the level of stock we’d ordered for Christmas, and although I felt I’d chosen well, the media was delivering a lot of gloom, almost telling people not to shop, but thankfully they did. We had a much better December than I’d anticipated, which made up the shortfall from October and November.
“For us, Christmas started early but cautiously. We put out our Christmas gifts and decorations out on the same weekend as previously, and customers started shopping straightaway. It was more a case of little and often.”
Jo said that best sellers included the Air Fryer cookbook.
“We couldn’t get enough of these,” she highlighted.
“As soon as they arrived they were snapped up, a bit like the appliance itself! Microwavable slippers, neck wraps and hot water bottles from Warmies were another great find. Plus, Christmas decorations sold well. The last week leading up to the big day went crazy. We beat previous years’ daily targets, which must have been the result of the postal strikes and panic buying. In fact, our best gift this Christmas was the postal strike! We’d moved to using a courier for our web orders some time ago, and everything we posted arrived on time!”
At Lark, which has 11 stores in South and West London, co-owner Priya Aurora-Crowe, reported: “Christmas for us was really delayed, with the festive mood kicking in much later than normal. However, this was our best Christmas ever, despite the consistent issues we faced – the recession, cost of living increase, train strikes and postal strikes.”
“The average spend was roughly 5-10% lower. Nevertheless, this was counterbalanced by more people shopping locally. For us, the train strikes were a bigger problem due to Lark stores being based in London villages which are also considered as shopping destinations. Self-care product categories, along with cosy giftware, were a huge hit for us.”
Top: For many gift retailers, Christmas 2022 delivered a festive cracker.
