Business picks up in days before Christmas to save season for stores

Published 4:04 pm Thursday, April 30, 2009

By Jessica Keller, The Courier-Herald

The holiday season rush is over, and many store owners in Enumclaw are pleased with this year's take.

While numbers are not official yet, a lot of stores seemed to break even, if not increase their sales slightly from last year.

A common trend business owners noted was the high volume of customers shopping later in December, even down to the last minute on Dec. 24.

Opal Olson, owner of Country Kids Boutique, said her business did fairly well.

"It wasn't gang-busters for me, but it was OK, and I ended up pretty well," Olson said.

She said Over the Edge, which shares the building with Country Kids, did extremely well, with sales higher than last.

"We were pleased, both of us," Olson said.

She said the first part of December, sales were down, and she got to worrying about how this Christmas season would fare.

"A lot of (customers) waited until the last week," Olson said.

She also noticed night-time shopping was poor in Enumclaw, even though customers knew businesses would be open later.

Most of the last-minute shoppers, Olson noted, were men and people who forgot to buy something for somebody.

"But that happens almost every year," she said.

One of the things she was pleased to hear from her customers were that many were trying to shop locally this Christmas season.

Tom Poe, owner of Tom Poe Diamond Jewelers, said sales were definitely up from last year.

"It's our strongest time of the year, but we had a good season," he said.

"I'm not saying it was off the charts or the best one that we've ever had, but it was a very strong Christmas for us," Poe added.

Unlike other stores, Poe said the jewelry store had a steady flow of customers throughout December with the same strong push at the end that others experienced.

One thing he noticed is customers appeared to be very pleasant this year and perhaps less hassled, although he wasn't sure why.

"Maybe the angry ones go to the mall, and the happy ones stay home, I don't know," Poe said.

Like Olson, Poe also noticed a number of people saying they were shopping as much as possible in Enumclaw. He said while, of course, customers can't find everything in Enumclaw, it is surprising to him to hear customers state how many things people can find, which he said, is the way it should be and what businesses in town work for.

Leo Smith of Sunrise Hallmark was one of the owners who also noticed shoppers not coming in until later in the month of December.

He said their busiest time was 10 days to two weeks before Christmas.

"I just wish it would have started earlier, you know," Smith said.

He noted that Sunrise did good sales, with customers buying, rather than browsing, and while Smith anticipates sales numbers to come back at least equal to last year's, he doesn't know if they exceed last year's numbers.

"I think we probably leveled out," Smith said, adding for the past two years, the business has lost in sales. "I'm not disappointed, but I'm not ecstatic either."

While he is not sure why sales have declined, he attributes the losses to come from a sluggish economy and the difficulty of competing with big stores and commercial businesses.

Craig Gammon, owner of Radio Shack, was one business owner who noticed a decline in sales this year.

"We had a slower Christmas than last year," he said, attributing the losses to come from a combination of the economy, more people shopping on the Internet and more people shopping at big businesses to buy their home electronics equipment.

"We were down a little bit, but we will survive," Gammon said.

Gammon said unless there is some big economic or other turn-around, there will be no large increases at his business, and he will have a limited amount of merchandise to sell.

Jessica Keller can be reached at jkeller@cmg-northwest2.go-vip.net/courierherald