According to the retail analysts, the all-important weekend before Christmas was a bit of a disappointment for both the high street and online retailers, with ‘Super Saturday’ on December 21 not living up to expectations.
Fortunately however, for many independent gift retailers, Christmas delivered.
“Despite the General Election on December 12, which was predicted to affect Christmas trade, the Christmas shop was surprisingly earlier compared to last year,” Adam de Wolff, co-owner of The Indigo Tree in South West London’s Streatham and Crystal Palace, told GiftsandHome.net. “We started to get busy from December 7, the first Saturday of the month, and it didn’t really stop for us. We timed the opening of our new Crystal Palace shop so as not to miss out on the Christmas season, but we had to buy somewhat blind as we were not 100% sure of what our prospective customers would be looking for. Thankfully, the demographic proved to be very similar to Streatham.”
He said that customers were looking for something funny, useful and, most importantly, below £20. “Within this budget, we therefore offered a wide range of items to suit all ages, and we had at least four customers tell us, or our staff, that they had done all of their Christmas shopping at The Indigo Tree this year!”
Continued Adam: “There was a re-run of a local campaign called SE19 Lates, where two late shopping nights were heavily promoted, and we more than doubled the day’s take on both nights. In fact, I was very concerned by the end of the weekend before Christmas that we had nothing much left to sell! Monday and Tuesday were the two best days of December with our stock room virtually empty, apart from photo frames.”
On the South coast, Bob England, owner of England At Home, concurred that trade was good. “We saw a sharp rise in internet sales, and the busiest time was around December 16-18, when we were looking after real life shoppers, receiving more stock and sending out parcels to ensure they arrived in time for Christmas. The last weekend and Monday December 23 were particularly pleasing days, and we were very lucky with the weather which meant that lots of people were about.”
Added Bob: “ Christmas Eve was still OK but it seemed that in our area people had mostly finished their last minute panic buying over the preceding days. Also, people seemed happy to pay a little more for quality and more thoughtful gifts, so we will be looking for new products that reflect this in 2020.”
At Alligator Pear in Tadworth, Surrey, buyer/manager Jenni Taylor commented that Christmas was more of a slow build up this year, “100% due to the General Election, making everyone more cautious, but once people started coming into the shop it was really good and pretty steady, with December 23 the shop’s best ever trading day,” Jenni confirmed. “Our strongest sector was fashion accessories where we did exceptionally well with fur products, to include fur trimmed gloves and scarves. Christmas decorations were big sellers too, and we also did particularly well with our silver and white sparkly story across a wide range of products. Other winners were gin related giftware, and anything featuring animal print, with cushions and throws also very popular.”
In Glasgow, Denise Laird, owner of Spirito, concurred that she was very happy with Christmas. “Trade started in November and we continued to do well until Christmas Eve, so I was very pleased with how things went,” Denise confirmed. “Our best sellers were jewellery, scarves, candles and greeting cards. However, Advent products weren’t great for us this year and toiletries were a wee bit slower than in previous years.”
Top: It seems it was a good Christmas for many gift independents.
