Stores around the South are reporting good sales figures in the month leading up to Christmas and some have high hopes for the last week of shopping.
Having the right amount of stock on hand has been the hardest task for retailers, with one store owner warning customers over hesitating making a purchase: "If you want it, buy it when you see it".
Otago Chamber of Commerce chief executive Dougal McGowan said Black Friday sales appeared to have been a success for big box retailers but it was the smaller retailers that were starting to enjoy good sales leading up to Christmas.
Golden Centre Paper Plus owner John Brenssell said his store had been very busy.
He said a lot of customers had family trapped overseas and so were buying and sending them presents early.
Stock was a struggle for the store, which had tens of thousands of active supply lines. Staff, as heads of various departments of the store, had to manage that, Mr Brenssell said.
But, as New Zealand was largely isolated from Covid, many customers’ expectations were not in line with how supply lines were badly affected overseas.
Before Covid, products would take as little as three days to arrive at the store and now that was more like six weeks.
"I can understand very well some retailers are going to run out of lines and they probably already have.
Mr Brenssell was grateful to his staff who had planned and stocked the store well in advance of the Christmas shopping season.
"We’ve done our best, planning well ahead. We’ve bulked up our supplies."
In Queenstown, Bound Books & Records owner Ollie Bombard said business had been better than expected, but down slightly on other Christmases.
"It’s usually the busiest season for us. We’ve still got a lot of stock in. We’re still selling a lot, we’re pretty happy.
"We’ve had good support from locals, which is great."
Mr Bombard said he noticed a number of stores in the resort town were quiet and he was sympathetic to those businesses.
A book about the history of Dusky Sound, Tamatea Dusky, was the most popular photo book and Searching for Charlie had been a popular gift as well.
Invercargill clothing and shoe store True Grit manager Tina Lawson said they had done very well with sales growing throughout the year, especially since the Covid-19 lockdown.
Dr Martens shoes were popular as well as other skate shoes, Ms Lawson said.
Oamaru Sports & Outdoors owner Richard Hill said 2020 was clearly lining up to be a bigger sales year than 2019. Sales had been steadily building for the past month.
"It started mid-November. Next week, that’s the big week [with] the last-minute things to be done."
Mr Hill said after the lockdown he did not know how things would go for the equipment shop.
"We’ve been lucky with our community supporting us.
"With the support we’ve had probably we would say [we’re] a bit overwhelmed on where we are, compared to where we thought we were going to be."
Water sports products were popular at the moment along with camping gear, cricket gear and surprisingly, basketballs.
Like with many retailers — Mr Hill was feeling the pressure when it came to stock.
"We are saying to people, if you want it, buy it when you see it ... it’s gone tomorrow."
