Hundreds of people rushed to take advantage of Boxing Day sales in south Trinidad yesterday.
Discounts of up to 75 per cent were offered on toys, clothes, jewelry, footwear, household items and electronics at various stores at Gulf City Shopping Mall, C3 Shopping Centre, as well as on High Street, San Fernando and High Street, Princes Town.
Crowds were so thick that some stores were allowing only a certain number of shoppers to enter at one time.
Among the bargain hunters was Maleke Chinapoo, who said he usually does his Christmas shopping on Boxing Day to save money. A regular at Gulf City Mall, he said while some items were really discounted, some stores had actually marked up their prices and “when the discount is given the price drops to the original price.”
Another shopper, Vishanlini Persad, said she was not impressed with some of the sale items.
“There were not many nice things on sale as apparently most of the nice things sold out for Christmas,” she said.
Persad said fewer stores offered Boxing Day discounts this year.
Not all the customers were trying to catch up on their Christmas shopping—some were actually getting a head start with purchases of Christmas decorations for 2019.
“This is an annual thing for me and my girlfriend. We usually buy our Christmas decorations for the next year because you save a lot of money,” Adam Akalu said, as he browsed through the displays at Bright Ideas which offered up to 50 per cent off on decorations.
Karishma Faroze and her aunt Maria Guerra, of St James, said they left home around 5 am to cash in on the sales in south Trinidad and started their shopping in Fyzabad where her boyfriend lives. She bought a ring stove, a speaker and a table. Faroze said she has been doing her shopping on Boxing Day for the past three years.
“We save our money for Boxing Day,” she said.
She and her aunt were at a new clothing and shoe store, Cyborg International, at Gulf City Mall, which was offering three slippers for $100. The store also had other items on sale.
Stefan Khan, manager of Detour Tech, said measures have to taken to control the number of customers rushing inside the store yesterday. On offer was 50 per cent off on toys and a further 10 per cent off on items which had already been discounted for Christmas.
Khan said sales were better than for Christmas.
At C3 Mall, some stores offered discounts of between two and 33 1/3 per cent off.
Anand Mongroo, who was shopping on Boxing Day for the first time, said: “The place lively. I think the prices could be a little cheaper, but the sale was good on certain items, the prices were good.”
Stores where prices were reduced, included the London Clothing Store, Adoo, Mickles and Wonderful World.
In Princes Town looked it appeared to be a normal shopping day. Most stores were open, vendors were selling on the pavement and there were hundreds of shoppers.
At JD’s Exclusive, a large crowd gathered outside the locked door awaiting their turn in the store. Everytime the door opened to allow customers to exit the store, the crowd surged forward in an attempt to get inside the building which was packed with shoppers.