Last-minute shoppers kept malls bustling

Press, 28 December 1989, Page 7

Last-minute shoppers kept malls bustling

By

DEBORAH McPHERSON

Last-minute Christmas shoppers kept suburban and city malls bustling at the week-end. Suburban malls were particularly satisfied with buoyant preChristmas Sunday trading. Linwood City Shopping Centre’s manager, Mrs Gail McKenzie, described Sunday trading as the “icing on the cake” of good trading leading up to Christmas. “It was fantastic on Sunday. Some of the retailers who have been at the mall since it opened

(nearly three years ago) say they have never experienced a Christmas like it before.”

Two mall staff spent an hour on Sunday directing traffic.

Mrs McKenzie said the success of the Sunday trading had justified the opening and set a precedent for Christmases to come.

The manager of Northland’s mall, Mr John Crase, said Sunday trading had topped off a good trading year. “Trading has been good across the board since about April really.”

Sunday trading had also given people an opportunity to stretch out Idst-minute Christmas shopping, although that seemed to have posed more difficulties for some people. Mr Crase said one man had entered Pascoe’s Jewellers on Christmas Eve at 4.10 p.m. still agonising over what to buy his wife.

The manager of the Woolworths Bush Inn supermarket, Mr Mike Boyd, said Sunday trading had been busier than expected. Grocery shoppers had queued

on both Saturday and Sunday to get through all 18 checkouts. The manager of Hornby Mall, Mr Mark Smith, also reported excellent Sunday trading on top of a steady week. People seemed to have appreciated the chance to do lastminute shopping, he said.

The chairman of Merivale Mali’s Merchants’ Association, Mr Pat O’Sullivan, said Sunday trading at the mall had been “brilliant.”

It had also given families a chance to shop together in a more relaxed atmosphere.

Pre-Christmas city trading had been satisfactory, said the general merchandise manager for J. Ballantyne and Company, Mr Richard Ballantyne. Trading had been difficult generally for about two years, so to write about a sudden spending boom would be “quite wrong,” he said. The amount of pre-Christmas sales and discounts had been “terrific,” said Mr Ballantyne. The important indicator for a buoyant economy, however, was profitable trading, he said.