Salary in a coma??
By Joy Mills-Ward
Business Reporter-SKNVibes.com
~~Adz:Left~~ Basseterre, St. Kitts: SKNVibes took to the streets to find out how good Santa was to the businesses in town. And though most people associate Christmas and Carnival with increased spending, we were surprised to find that most pre-Christmas sales were on the low side. We took sample opinions from different types of outlets.
The owner of an all female accessory outlet “Plush” revealed that her sales were “slow, slow, slow, terrible, sales have been just like an ordinary weekend in January”.
The manager further went on to say that the government needs to do something to help small businesses and the economy on a whole; they may need to give another 5% to civil servants.
The owner of a hair and beauty supply store, Kingdom Hair & Beauty Supply, revealed that the 5% retroactive increase to civil servants had helped her sales greatly.
However, she revealed that the period between September and November 2007 was very slow so this boost in sales is not really profit but more like replacement revenue.
What is Christmas without toys? The owner of the only dedicated toy store, Feran’s Toys, thinks that Christmas and Carnival do nothing to boost his toy sales. On the contrary, because there is increased foot traffic and kids are on holiday from school, he has to contend with kids trying to steal the toys.
The manager of Feran’s Toys also said he was looking forward to Value Added Tax (VAT) being introduced. As someone who had lived in the UK, he was familiar with how VAT tax was administered. He said some of the strain business owners experiences when having to pay the hefty duties charged on goods imported to restock would be eliminated and deferred to the buyer at the point of sales.
We spoke to a senior employee of Ashburry’s, who said that their Christmas sales were very good. Normally sales increase by the beginning of the week before Christmas Eve but things did not really pick up until around the 20th December 2007, the source stated.
