EASTER BUSINESS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXVI, Issue 101, 9 April 1936, Page 4

EASTER BUSINESS

Hastings Retailers Having Busy Time VERY GOOD RETURNS Just as Christmas of 1935 was a “bumper” season, so Easter this year has been a busy one for Hastings shopkeepers. From practically every branch of trade in the town—grocery, confectionery, soft-goods, bakery, fruit, tobacco, boots —come reports of very good trade this week. Clothing stores especially have enjoyed a big lift in business. Some store managers reported this morning that the volume of business in tho past few days was definitely better than last year or the year before. One said he expected the turnover to-day would bring his aggregate takings to a sum second only to the pre-Christmas period of shopping, and he gave his reasons. He admitted that the unseasonable summer had resulted in lowered trade against the total recorded a year ago, but said that tho early wintry and changeable weather had stimulated a demand for costumes, coats and cardigans, with the result that so far his showroom trade was well in advance of 1935. Suits, too, are in more brisk demand this Easter. Improved conditions have brought more money into freer use, and several clothing houses are reaping the benefit. Shoe stores, of course, have benefited from the uncertainties of the weathej-, and store managers note with satisfaction their mounting sales figures. Hams of average size are very scarce, presumably on account of the long holiday and the prospect of fairly good weather over the Easter period. One housewife telephoned five business houses before she was able to buy a ham of the size suitable to her household. As one would expect, bakers have been busy fulfilling the anticipated demands of the season. Although many hundred dozen extra small cakes were made yesterday, there will be very little left by closing time to-night, and though bakers have delivered to the shops an ample supply of bread, many housewives may be left lamenting. Like other traders, the baker has been hard put to cope with the demand. These last lines on bakery inevitably carry one’s thoughts to that pjeasant little tit-bit that annually reaches one’s table—the cinnamon-flavoured hotcross bun. This year the public seems for the most part to have left its bun orders to chance, for orders already left at some shops in town are not so numerous as they were last year or the year before. Still, tradition will supply its spur, and in all probability there will be a late scramble.

To sum up: Trade generally is very good, and to-day’s warm sunshine should have brought many thousands of people in to Hastings, and in turn a good deal of business that should make Easter of 1936 one of the best the shopkeepers have had in the last five years.