Christmas may be over, but this is still a critical week for retailers.
Ted Potrikus is president of the Retail Council of New York State, and while his organization doesn't generate specific numbers on what the state's retailers saw for holiday sales, he would not be surprised to see them come out with numbers similar to some national surveys, predicting about a four or five percent increase over last year.
And Potrikus says it's important to remember that the holiday selling period doesn't stop with Christmas. In fact, he says the week after Christmas has been generating some of the strongest holiday sales in recent years.
“And I think the 26th to the 27th annually now, is a busier buying day then is Black Friday. Everybody thinks, oh that’s the big shopping day. Not the case and it hasn’t been for years.”
Potrikus says this has become a big week for shoppers, partly due to the fact a lot of kids and parents are home this week, and he says with the unusually mild weather in recent weeks, a lot of consumers may have been waiting until now to start taking advantage of deep discounts on holiday clothing.
Potrikus says a combination of people redeeming gift cards are also expected to generate strong sales this week.