Dim sales for Christmas lights
With under two weeks left until Christmas day, many boxes of Christmas lights are still sitting on the store shelves, carts, and stalls in downtown Kingston.
With prices ranging from a low of $300 to as high as $2,400, some of the people who sell the decorative lights, while admitting a decline in sales of the product, said that they are still a must-have item on some shoppers' yearly list.
"People still a buy. It might be not as much as in the past like when we were children, but people still come in and buy. If is even one a di small box dem," a customer service representative from Bashco said.
She said that the regular multi-coloured lights are very popular among the shoppers, as they are the ones that fly off the shelves very quickly.
"We have some from last year because the LED ones, we have those because they are very durable, so they last for years and they are water resistant. We also have the regular plain red, but the regular multi-coloured finish already because that is what most of the people dem want," she explained.
SLOWED SIGNIFICANTLY
Meanwhile, Rajiv, the owner of a haberdashery also in downtown Kingston, believes that the sale of Christmas lights has slowed significantly.
"People buy, but one-one or two-two. Some of dem buy and have at their homes so they won't buy this year, so maybe next year," he explained.
He said that he didn't have to restock some types, of Christmas lights that he had in past because he already had many left over from last year.
However, Jacqueline, who sells the lights in her store, is optimistic that sales will increase despite having many boxes of the lights on her shelves.
"Christmas nuh come yet, so people can still come and buy dem pepper lights. 'Cause is when some people see di excitement a come dung and di day a draw near, dat a di time when some a dem a go come buy, and some people a wait pon dem December money too," she told THE STAR.