Traders Record Low Christmas Sales

By Abeduwaa Lucy Appiah

Hampers and other items packaged for sale during the yuletide still remain in stock days after the festivities due to low sales.

Stocked with rice, oil, can foods, wine and other confectionaries, the hampers, are still arrayed in front of shops in Accra with the beauty ribbons used in decorating them, fading away.

According to the vendors, this is because sales for the just ended celebration were low as compared to the previous years' due to hike in prices of goods.

Speaking to the Ghanaian Times in Accra, Madam Joyce Arhin who sells hampers at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle said she was unable to sell a lot of the hampers, priced at GH¢150, because customers complained that there was no money.

She recalled that in 2017, she made enough sales and cited instances in which companies ordered as many as 20 hampers at a time for their workers unlike this festive season".

On her part, Madam Emelia Lamptey, a hamper seller at the Okaishie market said she was unable to sell most of her hampers and also blamed it on price hikes which made the items used for the hampers expensive.

"The things I used for the hampers are expensive which made the price of the hampers increase this year compared to the previous year. This is why people did not really buy them," she added.

Madam Lamptey said she would keep the rest of the hampers and hoped customers would still purchase the remaining items.

Vendors of firecrackers were not left out of the situation. A firecracker vendor, Madam Rahinatu Abdullah, said price increase of firecrackers affected sales this season, leading to low sales.

"The firecrackers I bought for GH¢10 the previous years were sold to me at GH¢20 this season while boxes of firecrackers that were sold for GH¢25 in the previous years were also sold at GH¢50," she noted.

Madam Abdullah said she would wrap the remaining ones and resell next season since "buying of firecrackers has become a norm for some people, hence, they still buy them."

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