Local retailers are counting on last-minute holiday shopping to boost sales, which as of the middle of the month was down 10 percent year-on-year, according to Samie Lim, chairman emeritus of the Philippine Retailers Association (PRA).

Lim said Christmas shopping came in very late this year, with people wary of the uncertainties of the past months after the coup attempt at the heart of Makati in December and the Glorietta blast in October as well as worries over the peso-dollar exchange rate.

Industry sources claim that the strong peso helped dampen holiday sales as families of overseas workers get less pesos for the dollars they receive. Lim said that based on the feedback he got from mall operators and retailers at the PRA board meeting the week before Christmas, people tend to save up and hold off Christmas shopping until the very last-minute when necessities have been purchased.

He said as observed by the mall operators, that while people traffic in malls remained relatively high as it usually is around the holidays, people were buying the basics and postponing purchases for non-essentials.

‘The good news is food is still doing good as can be seen from sales of supermarkets, groceries and restaurants,’ Lim said.  Purchases for clothing and apparel are limited to those for kids. Lim said even sales of consumer durables, which are traditionally high during the holidays, are flat. He said pent-up demand could be noted in new items of gadgets and gizmos for tetchies and gamers like Play Station Portable.

‘But that’s totally different market,’ he said. High end stores meanwhile continue to generate better sales as they cater to a market unaffected by the exchange rate. For appliances, Lim said except for television sets, sales remain relatively flat. 

‘But that is a function of price, since new models of TVs, plasma and LCD screens are now 50 percent cheaper than they were in 2006,’ Lim said. Lim said SM Malls remain the biggest crowd because of its wide reach and the number of branches but Robinsons Malls is the fastest growing and quickly catching up as they aggressively expand.

Lim said sales of SM North EDSA, SM’s torchbearer, may have suffered a little due to the closure of some parts of the mall for renovation, as well as competition given from newly-opened Trinoma Mall of Ayala. But Ayala Malls, he said, have been especially hit by the Glorietta blast, with sales down as much as 50 to 60 percent down during the month of the incident in October.

‘Glorietta operations have returned to normal but their sales have not fully recovered. With the Trinoma Mall now in operation, whatever sales they may have been losing in Glorietta they may be recovering from Trinoma,’ Lim added