AROUND the county it is a hectic time for retail, and while the busiest days are yet to come, there are some positive indicators that it will be a happy Christmas for traders. On Monday, Kacper Zybert, the manager of Shannon Town Centre, said that footfall has been up on 2023.
“This week last year the footfall was 51,000. This week we had 60,298 people coming in through the doors,” he said.
Tesco opened recently in Shannon, and that has been a boost for the centre.
“Tesco definitely helped things, and there were a few events, we had Santa arriving and things,” he told The Clare Champion.
He said that the arrival of Tesco hasn’t hit the other large grocery retailers at the Centre.
“After Tesco opened I was expecting that Dunnes and Lidl might be hit, but they actually weren’t. They are hitting their targets,” he said.
Does Mr Zybery expect the strong performance to continue in the run up to the Christmas season?
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Owen Ryan has been a journalist with the Clare Champion since 2007, having previously worked with a number of other publications in Limerick, Cork and Galway. His first book will be published in December 2024.