Ennis shop owners report steady sales trade

THE opening days of the post-Christmas sales in Ennis are stronger than expected, according to Ennis traders, but are still marginally down on last year.

The incoming president of Ennis Chamber, John Dillane, said a number of sales began in the county town on St Stephen’s Day, with the remainder of shops opening their doors to customers on Monday and Tuesday.
“Traders were concerned in the lead-up to Christmas because business was down on previous years but more people did come out to shop in the last few days before Christmas, helping to boost business. In general, since the sales opened, business has been steady, not very busy, but definitely steady. Shop owners have told me that trade is marginally down on last year but they are not disappointed so far since Christmas. Many have said that business is better than they expected,” Mr Dillane commented.
He said business owners are also finding that the shopping trend seems to be changing somewhat, with the peak time for shoppers to hit the sales this week being between 11.30am and 3.30pm.
“It would appear that shoppers are taking their time in the morning, then coming in for some early afternoon shopping. The festive season in general, for many, is a break from work and their normal daily routine, so they seem to be coming into town that bit later and not hanging around very long. The thing with the pre-Christmas Budget is that by now people know where they stand, so gradually they are starting to spend again but people are more cautious in their purchases. People are much more likely to buy what they need now and not buy extras, so where as before, people may have found a bargain and bought two similar items in different colours, now they just buy one. As always, people are out spending vouchers they got as Christmas presents this week too, so that always helps business,” he added.
Mr Dillane also commented that the water problems around the country have also hit shopping. “Many people have had to spend considerable time getting their domestic water issues resolved and haven’t hit the shops until they know their water is back. Once the water problems are gone, we hope that trade will improve further.”
With the new social charge due to take effect on people’s take-home pay from January, traders are anxious as to what impact this will have on business.
“People have a ballpark figure in their head of what this will cost them but until they adjust their finances accordingly, they are going to be even more cautious with spending their hard-earned cash. It will be interesting to see what will happen,” Mr Dillane said.
Looking to the year ahead, Mr Dillane said there will be many challenges facing Ennis and Clare businesses.
“The year ahead is going to be all about pulling together and trying to ensure that every effort is made to retain and create jobs and to look after the local scene,” he remarked.
Meanwhile, Retail Ireland, the group that represents the Irish retail sector, said that nationally the post-Christmas sales are strong so far, adding that it remained cautious with regard to the outlook for 2011.
Retail Ireland director Torlach Denihan said the strong post-Christmas sales is badly needed good news after the 10% fall in last week’s retail sales by comparison with the same week last year.
“Next year will be very challenging for the retail sector. Since the start of the recession, there has been a massive fall in what customers spend but the cost of running a shop has hardly fallen at all. Rents, hourly wages, REPAK fees and local authority charges have by and large not fallen. If Government is serious saving jobs in the retail sector it should tackle each of these areas in turn,” he commented.