Christmas may be over, but holiday sales are still going strong. That’s according to Mike Kauffman, the general manager at Eastview Mall.
He said the week after Christmas is usually the third busiest shopping week of the year at the mall, and it’s not just because of everyone who is stopping buy to return or exchange gifts.
“It’s a critical week, a lot of gift cards out there, certainly a fair number of returns as well and the retailers hope that when somebody comes in with a return that they in turn, turn around and spend some money. So yeah, this is a real important one for us,” Kauffman explained.
He said that shoppers also know it’s a good time of year to find some bargains.
“You’ll see really from now, going through the middle part of January are big times to come out to the property and find some great sales and you’re going to see the department stores are going to be looking to get rid of a lot of their excess merchandise and the individual stores as well in the mall, so (a big) few weeks ahead of us for sales,” Kauffman said.
Kauffman said that overall, it’s been a solid year for sales at Eastview, with sales up around 4% in November, and similar numbers expected in December. Nationally, retail sales for the season were up 3.4%, with a growing number of the holiday sales coming through online purchases.
Mastercard SpendingPulseOnline reports that online sales rose 18.8% compared to last year. Online shopping made up nearly 15% of total retail sales.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
