Janice Butler, who operates a perfume store on Bay Street, said Wednesday that low business levels have been common for much of the year, however, she is hopeful that sales will show a marked increase over the remaining days of holiday shopping.
“Things are a little slow right now, because as you know Bahamians are very slow shoppers and we tend to wait for the last minute for everything, but I believe that in the end it will work out and we will have a beautiful Christmas,” she said. “We don’t know just how it will go this year because a lot depends on the last minute shoppers.”
Also experiencing sales performance below projected levels, Eric Wells, a Bay Street merchant who operates a souvenier store, said depressed sales have plagued his operation for most of the past two years.
“Since September 11th, 2001 business has dropped off tremendously and I haven’t seen any improvement,” Mr. Wells said.
“This December seems to be even worse than September past, which was supposed to be the slowest part of the season. By this time we thought that things would have started to pick up, but they haven’t – they’re just as dead as back in September.”
Pointing out that most of his business is geared toward tourists, Mr. Wells blamed the falloff in business on reduced spending by many visitors.
He further pointed out that with the increasing number of cruise visitors compared with stopover travelers sales at his establishment have experienced an additional negative impact as the former group traditionally spends less per capita.
Recently released statistics from the Central Bank, meanwhile, revealed that for the 12 months ending September 2003, the annual inflation rate increased to 2.9 percent from 2.3 percent in 2002.
Some merchants expressed concern that with rising costs, business levels could suffer even further reduction.
The increase in the rate of inflation reflected elevated prices for recreation and entertainment services, other goods and services, medical care, furniture and household operations, transport, communication and housing, according to the Bank’s third quarter report released this week.
By Darrin Culmer, The Bahama Journal
