A New York State retail official says it's hard to predict how much better the holiday shopping season will be for the state's merchants compared to last year.
That according to Ted Potrikus, president and CEO of the NY State Retail Council. He says online sales have really made it hard to measure sales from year to year, but anecdotally, he has been hearing of the usual burst of activity over the last week or so.
“What’s happened between Thanksgiving and Christmas, you’re seeing a lot of online, you’re seeing a lot of people who did take advantage of those early sales and I think it’s part of the woodwork now, you’re seeing everybody wait until Friday and Saturday to finish everything up.”
Potrikus that often a special item or toy will get people into traditional brick and mortar stores, and this year, it's a toy, the Hatchimals which are furry animals that peck themselves out of an egg.
“They’ll go out and they’ll try to get it in the stores and they’ll take a look around, it’s getting the people in the stores that’s half the battle, so when you have a high, single item like that merchants look for that and I think that will be one of the things that we look back on for the 2016 holiday shopping season and say it was a little better than last year, because of (the hatchimals).”
At Eastview Mall, manager Mike Kauffman says it’s not just the sales leading up to Christmas that are important for merchants. He says with a lot of people buying gift cards, retailers are hoping they get redeemed next week so that they can add to their sales numbers for the year.
“The retailers want them redeemed because that’s when they’re able to book this sale but also it brings people into the store as well, so that week between Christmas and New Year’s is a very big week.”
At Marketplace Mall, manager Mike Wilmot says despite the big trend toward online shopping in recent years a lot of people still prefer buying certain items in a traditional store.
“Certain stuff you have to touch and feel and it’s a little more personal that way too, you actually feel a sense of accomplishment. But all the stores, they all have their own websites too so they incorporate all that in; they’re going to lose some brick and mortar but they’re also doing well online.
Nationally, there have been predictions that retail sales may rise about 3.5 percent over this time last year.
