Christmas shopping picks up in Tobago

Two days before Christmas Day, shopping in Tobago intensified.

But businessmen observed that unlike previous years, there was not a continuous flow of customers throughout the day.

“People are shopping. It kinda busy up a bit, but there are high and low periods,” a manager at Cost Cutters Supermarket told Newsday.

She said this has been the case since the start of the Christmas season.

“I guess, maybe, is how people getting their money or they are shopping to their convenience whenever they get the time.

“So, like if somebody get the time to run away from work they will come and make their groceries. But you have who will come during the night when the pace slow down. Like people choosing the times when to come.”

The manager observed there was a heavy flow of shoppers on Wednesday morning.

“But then it slowed down for a good 15 minutes and then after, it just get back busy. So, is an on-and-off thing.”

The manager said although sales have picked up at the Plymouth Road supermarket within recent days, it does not compare to last year.

“It is more dead this year. Last year, all now you could not sit down.”

She said despite covid19, many people are still finding money to shop for Christmas.

“People spending. When you feel the country has no money, it has money.”

Christiana Tam, manager of the Port Mall, Scarborough, also observed that sales have picked up late.

But she was quick to point out, “It is nowhere near where it was last year.

Tam said shoppers are more judicious with their spending.

“People know what they coming for and they probably not spending on non-essentials as much,” she told Newsday.

“Also, if they coming to buy gifts they tend to know exactly what they coming for as well.”

Tam said shoppers are also buying gifts for fewer people.

“The spread of people that they are buying for is not as much.

“So, where you would normally buy for granny, aunty, whoever is in the house, is like I am buying for my mother, my husband, my children and that is it.

“It seems as though they are very specific in what they are coming for.”

The manager of Miles Almandoz & Company Ltd, Phillip Almandoz, said the liquor and beverage business experienced its “first big push” of customers on Saturday.

He is hoping the trend continues.

“For us, it was a late start because we had hoped to get an earlier start maybe two weeks before,” he said of Almandoz, located at Wilson Road, Scarborough.

“But, we have to be grateful for what we get in this time. We are keeping our fingers crossed that it is a safe one. We just have to be grateful for what we get this year.”