Shoppers enter holiday home stretch
As the holiday shopping season heads into its home stretch, local shoppers armed with lists short and long will be filling the stores and crowding the parking lots in search of last-minute holiday gifts. For some, it’s the portable DVD player that’s tops on their gift list this holiday season. For others, it’s a cable knit sweater in cotton, cashmere, or any fabric in between.
Though this holiday shopping season is without its “must have” item, local shoppers seem to be gravitating to the usual holiday gifts: warm sweaters, video games, and electronics.
Jim Gorby, manager of The Bon-Ton at Uniontown Mall, said electronics items of any kind have been popular this season, as have personal care items, cosmetic gift sets and sweaters “for anybody and everybody.”
Gorby said electronic items have been selling especially well over the past few weeks.
Just steps away at JCPenney, manager John Ranney said Steelers merchandise is very popular. Friday morning, the store’s supply of Ben Roethlisberger jerseys was gone in a few hours, Ranney said.
Holiday gift items, such as casino games and tabletop games like air hockey and table tennis, have also been selling well, he said.
Jewelry sales have also been strong going into the final fevered days before Christmas, Ranney said, with sweaters and outerwear always a big seller Christmas after Christmas.
Down the hall at the Uniontown Mall, Sears general manager Wayne Pracel said because of the success of the Pittsburgh Steelers, the football team’s merchandise, notably Ben Roethlisberger shirts, had to be restocked several times since the start of the holiday shopping season.
It’s not just wives wanting to buy their hubby a great Christmas gift, instead, Pracel said, “there’s no rhyme or reason” to the people who come to purchase Steelers merchandise.
Regardless if it’s a big screen television or a portable DVD player, electronics are also hot holiday gift items, while many shoppers have purchased the Black & Decker jar opener and the laser-beam tools, which provide precision in cutting and measuring, Pracel added.
At the Uniontown Wal-Mart, a manager said the hot toys this year have been anything to do with Elmo or Spider-Man, but vehicles and all board games have also been big sellers.
Electronic items, such as televisions, DVD players and video game units, are always on many holiday shopping lists, she said.
This weekend marks the last days of the holiday shopping season, and retailers were counting on extended hours and deeper discounts to attract shoppers. In recent years, the Saturday before Christmas has replaced Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, as the busiest shopping day of the year.
And while it’s easy to get caught up in the holiday hysteria, too much generosity could be a bad thing if people are buying more gifts than they can afford.
Caryn Bilotta, director of education and marketing for Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Western PA, said that shoppers should try and pay with cash if possible, and to have a game plan if credit cards come into play.
“If you’re going to use credit cards, sit down and figure out how much you can put on them so it doesn’t take you 15 years to pay them off,” Bilotta said. “If you can’t pay off your balance every month, then you should try and have it paid off within three months.”
Bilotta said people should use a rubber band or string and wrap a piece of paper around their credit cards and track how much is accumulating on them before handing them over to a cashier.
“People don’t worry about paying it back later, many of them are glad they don’t have to hand over all the cash in their wallet,” she said. “But they get hit with the bill later, usually with three other financial issues all at the same time.”
Bilotta recommends using one card rather than several to make it easier to track your spending, and said to use a card with the lowest interest rate. If you’re shopping at larger stores that have their own credit card, she said to stick with the lower interest rate cards because store-issued credit cards tend to have higher interest rates.
She said the period following the holidays is the busiest for CCCS because people who are already in financial peril are pushed over the edge by their spending this time of the year. CCCS offers credit counseling and budget management for people and works with people and credit companies to reduce the number of fees people pay and help them get their debt burden reduced, Bilotta said.
“Depending on when they started shopping, some people are already getting their bills,” she said. “It’s so easy to get out of control this time of year.”
Attempts to reach Uniontown’s Super Kmart were unsuccessful Sunday night.