Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Hun­dreds of cit­i­zens in search of a bar­gain flocked to re­tail stores across north Trinidad for Box­ing Day sales yes­ter­day.

While many re­turned to shop­ping malls, which were heav­i­ly at­tend­ed in the run-up to Christ­mas, many were drawn to spe­cial­ist re­tail­ers, who tra­di­tion­al­ly open their doors on the hol­i­day to cap­i­talise on ad­di­tion­al sales.

Two of the most heav­i­ly sub­scribed were Mode Alive in Val­sayn and Fire­one Fire­works in Ma­coya.

When a news team from Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Mode Alive short­ly af­ter mid­day, there were no emp­ty spots in the car park, with cus­tomers opt­ing to park out­side and in sur­round­ing streets.

In a brief in­ter­view, Mode Alive own­er Gary Aboud said he was hum­bled and thank­ful for the re­sponse, which he de­scribed as typ­i­cal for the an­nu­al hol­i­day.

“We have a strong fol­low­ing of peo­ple that like our style,” he said.

Aboud al­so sought to share some in­sight on how his store is able to of­fer cus­tomers ir­re­sistible deals on house­hold items dur­ing the sale.

“We have a for­mu­la for how we buy where, as far as pos­si­ble, we cut out mid­dle­men and buy di­rect­ly from fac­to­ries. We have to buy big­ger vol­umes,” he said.

He al­so ex­plained how his busi­ness has be­come im­mune to for­eign ex­change short­ages that have dec­i­mat­ed many oth­er lo­cal re­tail­ers.

“We ex­port as much as we sell lo­cal­ly, so we nev­er have that short­age of for­eign ex­change where we are un­able to im­port,” Aboud said.

Aboud, who al­so al­lows lo­cal small busi­ness­es to sell their crafts, pro­duce and food prod­ucts un­der a large tent at the en­trance to his store, en­cour­aged fel­low busi­ness­peo­ple to give back af­ter ex­pe­ri­enc­ing suc­cess.

“I would en­cour­age all busi­ness­es to spread their arms and em­brace the wider com­mu­ni­ty. We en­cour­age good­ness and love and get bless­ings from above,” he said.

The re­sponse to Fire­one’s sale was equal­ly sig­nif­i­cant, with traf­fic on the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way at the Ma­coya in­ter­sec­tion near to where its head­quar­ters is lo­cat­ed, as a re­sult of the re­sponse to their sale.

Even with the com­pa­ny se­cur­ing park­ing at the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence and a neigh­bour­ing com­pa­ny for cus­tomers, many were still forced to park on the road.

In a brief in­ter­view, cus­tomer ser­vice rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ani­ka Lara ex­plained that cus­tomers are at­tract­ed by the com­pa­ny’s “buy one, get one free (BO­GO)” spe­cial on Box­ing Day.

“Though we would have cus­tomers buy­ing through­out the year for their pri­vate events, to­day is a day every­one looks for­ward to,” she said.

She said there had been a steady stream of cus­tomers through­out the day, with staff reg­u­lar­ly be­ing re­quired to re­stock prod­uct dis­plays.

“I can say it was one of our great­est years. Since the start this morn­ing, it nev­er died. Peo­ple just keep com­ing,” she said.

She not­ed that while many cus­tomers ex­pressed in­ter­est in pet-friend­ly fire­works be­ing of­fered by the com­pa­ny, most still pre­fer tra­di­tion­al fire­works.

“Most peo­ple come for the loud nois­es but there is some­thing for every­one,” she said.

Most cus­tomers, who brought their chil­dren to help se­lect, were seen leav­ing with shop­ping carts filled to the brim with py­rotech­nics.

One cus­tomer, who was seen pack­ing his car full of prod­ucts, ex­plained that not all his pur­chas­es were for his and his fam­i­ly’s en­joy­ment.

“With this sale, we does buy and sell over to make some good mon­ey,” he said.

The scene at Long Cir­cu­lar Mall in St James was stark­ly dif­fer­ent. When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed around 12.30 pm, there were less than a dozen cars in the car park and on­ly a hand­ful of stores open. Se­cu­ri­ty guards as­signed to the mall ex­pressed op­ti­mism that the sit­u­a­tion would im­prove as the day pro­gressed.

“Hope­ful­ly, more peo­ple will come lat­er. Peo­ple usu­al­ly don’t come so ear­ly af­ter Christ­mas,” one guard said.