On Wednesday there was an air of earnestness about the manner in which Water Street vendors were going about luring the relative handful of walk-by potential customers that were glancing at the goods laid out on pallets. They were doing do so despite the unimpressive number of likely shoppers. As yet, there is not much evidence of seasonal goods. A few of the vendors told Stabroek Business that were yet to “see the money” to invest in the household items they were planning to offer for the season. A few others said they were waiting on the wholesalers some of whose imports were yet to arrive in Port Georgetown.
This served to confirm the unmistakable sluggishness in the trading environment. The pavements are yet to be packed to capacity with vendors and the customary jousting by shoppers for the limited available walking space is not yet in evidence.
We canvassed the vendors’ opinions on the sort of Christmas that might be anticipated. That set tongues wagging about the post-elections “flatness” of the economy. They were offering myriad reasons, some not altogether convincing though the conclusions were invariably the same: “too little money circulating.” Most of them are putting a brave face on it, speculating on the likelihood of bonus payouts and the last-minute announcement of another salary increase for public servants. There appears to be an abiding faith that there is still time left for shopping.
In recent years we have used the New Vendors Arcade on the western half of Water Street as a sort of barometer of the volume of trading amongst the small vendors. For the second year running Shelly McKend and Leanna Alexis, two warm and engaging sisters whose stalls are amongst those closest to pavement were the first vendors that we encountered. They have been offering clothing and footwear from their 145 New Vendors Arcade stall for the past eight years. For them, business this year was “reasonable.” Their regular customers had stuck with them and there had been some new ones.
Eventually, we got around to seasonal shopping. They told us that they were yet to make their customary visits to the wholesalers to do their own Christmas shopping. Apart from the bigger importers the vendors in the Arcade have developed their
