Retailers complain business is not booming

THE MAIN shopping thoroughfares may have been packed with Christmas shoppers yesterday but high street stores are still complaining of very disappointing sales.

Trifonas Neocleous, of the small shopkeepers’ union Povek, said sales over the Christmas period so far are “down 20 to 30 per cent compared to the same time last year”.

“This is unacceptable for these Christmas days,” he said. “People are being cautious and are already looking forward to the January sales. No-one seems to buy anything except in the sales these days,” Neocleous said.

He also said high street shops were loosing custom to big supermarkets. “We cannot compete with the big television and newspaper advertising campaigns the hypermarkets have launched for the festive season,” he said.

Neocleous said he hoped the combination of Sunday opening today and most people having been given their thirteenth salaries on Friday would lead to an upturn in sales over the next few days.

The story told by hypermarkets was far more upbeat. The response yesterday of the sales manager of one out-of-town superstore was typical: “It’s mayhem in here!” she said.

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