GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

With a mere two days to go be­fore Christ­mas Day, busi­ness­es and ven­dors are re­port­ing slow sales in north Trinidad. How­ev­er, oth­ers have been stock­ing up on es­sen­tial med­ica­tion for the sea­son.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed The Falls at West Mall, West­moor­ings, yes­ter­day, the hus­tle and bus­tle was clear­ly ab­sent.

In fact, shop­pers said this year they were on stricter Christ­mas bud­gets, as they not­ed there had been an in­crease in prices com­pared to pre­vi­ous pe­ri­ods.

Ac­coun­tant Aman­da Ba­boolal said with the rise in in­fla­tion, she has had to re­vis­it her shop­ping list.

“I cut back on who I want to buy for,” she said.

Even pop­u­lar stores like Won­der­ful World said they had seen few­er cus­tomers this year, but man­ag­er Ger­vais Nathaniel was hop­ing Box­ing Day would bring in more sales.

In St James, while the bars were filled to ca­pac­i­ty, the shops which were opened did not see a large turnout of cus­tomers as in the pre­vi­ous years.

Own­er of Rahul’s Gift Shop, Vi­mal Lakhan, said he was forced to low­er prices to at­tract more Christ­mas cus­tomers.

De­scrib­ing 2024 as “very chal­leng­ing” for busi­ness, he said, “Sales have im­proved in De­cem­ber but the year was very chal­leng­ing for var­i­ous rea­sons like crime and the econ­o­my,” he said, not­ing that mats and house­hold items re­mained very pop­u­lar items.

He was al­so hop­ing that there would be a last-minute rush, with peo­ple pur­chas­ing more toys.

Mean­while, the sit­u­a­tion was sim­i­lar in down­town Port-of-Spain.

“In terms of the crowd, it is ac­tu­al­ly way slow­er. You would ac­tu­al­ly see more crowds, more peo­ple, you would even hear more mu­sic, so for a Christ­mas sea­son it is ac­tu­al­ly not that good,” said Shan­ice Ramdeen, man­ag­er of Sweet Il­lu­sions lo­cat­ed on Queen Street.

She said the store was opened about six months ago.

Her sen­ti­ments were re­flect­ed by sev­er­al Char­lotte Street ven­dors, who bit­ter­ly com­plained this was “the worst” Christ­mas they had seen in a “long time.”

There was a marked re­duc­tion in foot traf­fic when Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed yes­ter­day, with ven­dors blam­ing the crime sit­u­a­tion for poor sales.

“I think crime keep­ing peo­ple away. Around this time, I have to re­plen­ish goods but this Christ­mas, peo­ple just not buy­ing as be­fore so look at how much I still have to sell,” one ven­dor said, point­ing to the large heaps of slip­pers and short pants on the tray of her van.

Oth­er ven­dors be­lieved peo­ple were sav­ing their mon­ey for Car­ni­val rather than spend­ing it on the usu­al kitchen tow­els and hab­er­dash­ery items pop­u­lar­ly found on Char­lotte Street.

How­ev­er, while peo­ple may not be buy­ing many presents this year, some have been stock­ing up on es­sen­tial med­i­cine for the hol­i­days.

Mea­gan Roberts, phar­ma­cy tech­ni­cian at Mphar­ma­cy, Alyce Glen, said, “There have been many flus go­ing around so we usu­al­ly find that peo­ple come to stock up on their pain and fever med­ica­tion and sur­pris­ing­ly enough, they al­so stock up on their mul­ti­vi­t­a­mins be­cause it is a longer pe­ri­od of time un­til they can af­ford it for the next pay­out,” Roberts said.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, she not­ed peo­ple have al­so been buy­ing an­tibi­otics, es­pe­cial­ly those who are trav­el­ling abroad for the hol­i­days.

So, health, not wealth, seems to the trend this Christ­mas, at least for some.