As the first full year coming out of the pandemic, retailers in Richmond expect to see more sales to be higher during this year’s holiday season compared to last year.
Julia Dow, general manager at CF Richmond Centre, said holiday traffic is back to pre-pandemic levels this year at the mall.
“Traffic in our centres has steadily increased so it's evident that the guests have missed the physical interactions from in-person shopping for sure, and being purposeful and efficient with their trips,” Dow said.
Richmond Centre, the largest shopping centre in Richmond, has hosted Santa Claus and live musical performances at the mall for holiday shoppers.
Dow said Santa Claus will be at the mall until Dec. 24 for photos, but he is already fully booked for the last couple days.
“He is such a popular attraction here,” said Dow.
Saint Germain Bakery, located at Aberdeen Centre and Richmond Centre, also expects to see more customers this holiday season compared to last year.
“Christmastime for us is probably our third busiest time after Mother's Day and Father's Day,” said Alex Ma, marketing manager of Saint Germain Bakery.
“People bring our cakes to office parties, family gatherings and friend parties and so on, so we get a lot more orders during Christmastime.”
Canadian payment processing firm Moneris said their predictive holiday spending data show that retailers could have the largest sales volume on Thursday, Dec. 21. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case in Richmond.
“The weekends [before Christmas] have been busiest and I anticipate that Boxing Day will be as historically busy as ever,” said Dow.
Ma said they also foresee the weekend to be the busiest time during the holiday season as people do some last-minute shopping, but staff have stocked up and prepared.
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