It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas with towns and cities across the country starting to light up.
While the sound of sleigh bells are still some way off, the ringing of cash registers is growing louder with retailers nervously optimistic about what lies ahead.
The Christmas lights on Grafton Street in Dublin were turned on by children from Little Blue Heroes Foundation, a Garda charity supporting families of children with serious illnesses, on Thursday evening, with a total of 25 other streets across the city following its lead courtesy of business group Dublin Town.
Richard Guiney, the group’s chief executive, said retailers he had spoken to, particularly those north of the Liffey, were “nervous” about trading with footfall down slightly on this time last year.
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However, he said while some retailers remained “concerned” about the impact of traffic management changes implemented in September restricting the flow of cars through the city, others were upbeat about the prospect of footfall increasing over the coming weeks.
Mr Guiney said “it hasn’t been a great year” to date but “fortunes can be turned around”. He recalled the concerns expressed for trade after rioting in the city centre on November 23rd last, but said “footfall was actually up in December and trade exceeded expectations” afterwards.
This is the 16th year Dublin Town has illuminated the city and Mr Guiney said the Christmas lights “are by far the biggest task we undertake for our business members and people of the city, and beyond, each year”.
All told, he said, it takes 30 people, working through the night over four weeks, to erect the lights. “Every single bulb and fixture is tested by Dublin Town’s lighting contractor in advance of going up.”
Jean McCabe of Retail Excellence said her members were “definitely hopeful they will have a good Christmas”.
She was upbeat that there would be “a lift in consumer sentiment in the post-election period with the certainty that brings with the one-off measures including the energy credit and the double child benefit payment early next month likely to lead to an increase in consumer spending”.
She said “inflation has levelled off and there’s definitely a bit more certainty when it comes to pricing”.
Ms McCabe said it was early in the season but some retailers were saying they were “happy with trade right now and we are seeing people out shopping that bit earlier but you’ll always have that last-minute rush”.
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Mark Limby of Brown Thomas was upbeat and said sales had been boosted by overseas visitors. While the retailer’s window display centres around the 12 days of Christmas, its Christmas shop has been open for almost 100 days already with the first decorations of the year sold last August.
“Our Christmas shop has been really successful this year,” he said.
He said the luxury market in Ireland “is outperforming the international market at the moment and we’re quite confident that we’re going to see a lot of customers coming into our two Dublin stores in particular”.
