The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

Bahamian retailers have reported a “steady flow” of Black Friday customers and sales as persons “get the jump” start on their Christmas shopping.

Brent Burrows Jr, CBS Bahamas vice-president of retail and sales, told Tribune Business that shoppers were lined up outside the retailer’s Southwest Plaza location from 5am on Friday in a bid to be first in the door when the store opened.

CBS Bahamas typically opens at 5am on Black Friday as a way to give customers more time to shop, but Mr Burrows said this year “felt different” as he noticed other retailers in Southwest Plaza did not open as early as his store. “Usually, the BTC and Aliv stores are open along with us, but we were the only ones on Friday, which was kind of strange,” he added.

Despite the slow start in the Southwest Plaza, there was a “steady flow” of customers all day for CBS Bahamas as people picked up gifts ahead of the upcoming Christmas holiday. “People picked up a little bit of everything,” Mr Burrows added.

“We sold out of one of the Christmas trees pretty quickly. The toolkits and the power tools, because they make good gifts for Dad, they were gone pretty quick, and then we have the toaster and the air fryers. They were moved, too. I think the things that people can wrap and give to their family and friends is what we see moving the quickest.”

“Aside from us, it seemed pretty quiet this morning at 5am. Normally there is a lot more action and a lot more stuff going on, so I don’t know if the other stores started later or didn’t put as much into this year as they did last year,” Mr Burrows said.

“I know the shoe store opened last year at 5am, too, so I am not sure why them and BTC and Aliv didn’t open at 5am this year. Maybe they didn’t have a good last year or something like that. But I know, when I got here, the only people were in front of the CBS store at 4.30am.”

Alphanique Duncombe-Spence, BTC’s go to market executive senior manager, said: “Black Friday sales are going pretty good. What we’ve done this year different than previous years is that our Black Friday sale is nationwide. That has allowed us to have a steady flow of traffic throughout all of our locations nationwide. So that’s one of the good things here.

“Then the other thing that we have done different this year, aligned with our campaign theme, ‘Christmas is on us’, is we’ve added prizes for everyone that’s signing up for services. Because we’re not just focused on deals or providing our devices, but we’re focused also on deals on our services.”

BTC customers who paying their bills in full or sign-up for selected services can enter to win prizes once they are in-store. Ms Duncombe-Spence added: “Our customers are anxious because we have service promotions as well.

“So what we’ve been doing on our fixed side, we’re giving our customers double speeds if they sign up for broadband. Then for our customers on our prepaid side, we’re giving them double data once they sign up for our $15 combo plan or more.

“So what we’ve had is a surplus above the normal trends for Friday. We have additional sales happening, where customers are excited to get the benefits of the double data and the benefits of the speed of the broadband as well. And then, of course, our phone sales. We have continuous movement. We had an additional inventory that we brought in just for this weekend as well.”