PEEL St retailers have been buoyed by a Christmas business boom with a number of shops reporting better-than-expected sales.
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The retail game continues to get tougher with more competition than ever online, but “good customer service” hasn’t gone out of fashion yet, local shopkeepers say.
Just Irresistible owner Kylie Maizey said Christmas sales brought more tidings of financial comfort and joy than previous years.
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“It was quite good compared to the year before,” Ms Maizey told The Leader.
She said there was no doubting it had been tough for retail in recent years trying to “keep up momentum” against online competitors.
“You won’t find anyone who says they’re breezing,” she said.
Ms Maizey said bricks-and-mortar shops had to offer something to keep the customers coming back.
“It’s keeping them interested and coming back to the shop,” she said.
The Christmas delight was felt down the road too, with The Lemon House owner Kathy Keating reporting the best festive period in more than 13 years.
She said it was down to offering something which couldn’t be found online:“good customer service”.
“Customers tell us they’ve ordered something online and when it’s delivered it’s nothing like they thought it’d be and then it’s a hassle to send it back,” she said.
Mrs Keating was also very interested to see how her business would fare during festival, with the block between Brisanbe and Bourke St open to traffic and hosting no events.
“I think it depends on council monitoring the hour-long parking,” she said.
“If people just come down and park in the street all day, that’ll be detrimental.”
Ali’s Boutique owner, Wendy Ryan, echoed the other businesses’ summation of Christmas.
“It was quite good,” she said.
“It has been a bit tough in retail.”
Ms Ryan was also interested to see how the festival would pan out for business.
“I would’ve wanted it to stay the same as last year,” she said. “I can’t tell how it’ll go, it’ll be very interesting.”