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2 Jan 2020
Marginal gains for local business this Christmas PÁRAIC McMAHON
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paraic@clareecho.ie
l FESTIVE FUN: Christmas dipper Liz Daly warms up after joining hundreds in Lahinch to partake in the Christmas Day Swim, one of many swims taking place across the county last week. She is pictured with Mick Quinn and Sally the dog. More pictures on page 15
Photo by Michael Kearney
XTRA footfall was visible in stores across Clare for Christmas 2019 but didn’t necessarily lead to increased sales with some stores recording marginal gains and others a slight dip on last year. A wide range of events as part of the Christmas in Ennis programme brought atmosphere to the county town. The pedestrianisation of main streets also aided businesses according to Patrick Bourke of Patrick Bourke Menswear, which has stores in Ennis and Kilrush. Speaking to The Clare Echo, the Kilkee native admitted little separated 2019 sales with the previous year. “The middle part of December performed quite well bar one or two days when the weather wasn’t hectic, it has been a long run in to this Christmas, the last few days leading into the weekend proved to be very busy. The closing off of the high street in Ennis to car traffic helped us, the footfall was passing the door on foot rather than on wheels so there was more chance of them stopping. “We noticed a younger age bracket of
person in the shop, the younger family man and his wife with kids because they were enjoying the train and the merry go round, the dwell time from that type of shopper was much longer on the street”. Kilrush he felt “wasn’t quite as hectic” while noting that people returning to West Clare for the holidays made the final shopping week of December a busy one. Around Shannon, there was a noticeable increase in personnel at SkyCourt Shopping Centre helped by the arrival of the Omniplex Cinema. However according to Raj Singh of The Gadget Fix, this didn’t lead to more buyers. “It was quiet. It was only coming up to Christmas, the last week was a bit busier, before that it was quiet,” he said. On a national scale, Christmas 2019 is marginally ahead of 2018. An average increase of 30 per cent was recorded by Retail Excellence for Black Friday. But murmurings that ‘the boom is back’ hasn’t been experienced so far. Bourke’s Menswear which is open 91 years has seen Ireland’s revolving cycle of boom to bust first-hand. Patrick said 2019 was not back to boom levels. “It wouldn’t be close to the boom period. We’re having a lot of people through the door but they’re not purchasing as much. We used to get big spenders in the boom time, that type of spend is gone.”
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