THOUGH many people saw Boxing Day as another festive holiday to spend time with family and friends with good food and good times, for some, it was business as usual, trying to get in a few more sales before all the Christmas hype is gone.

Aside from the usual Stabroek Market and Bourda Market vendors who never seem to go home, several other street vendors and even a few businesses were opened on Wednesday as the country celebrated Boxing Day.

Many of the stores and vendors traded in clothing, looking out especially for the many Cubans who have made it a norm to shop downtown on holidays and Sundays.
And the Cubans did not disappoint. Several were out and about Tuesday, among the shoppers.

Classic Styles Boutique on Regent Street opened from 08:00 hrs and closed around 14:30 hrs. Store manager Devon Bunbury was pleased with how the day went.
“We just come out and see if we catch any sales; we catch something rather than you deh home and yuh sleeping and you studying what going on in town. It’s a regular thing [to sell on Boxing Day],” Bunbury said.

Across the street, Joel Moore was vending footwear on the pave. He left his children at home to come out and “catch his hand”.

“I looking for it. We sell every Boxing Day, because you does got them different occasion and people does be out looking. It’s just that you don’t see them big number of people but sales coming in, slowly but surely,” said Moore, who was out since 09:00 hrs and was planning to sell up to 15:00hrs.

At the corner of Light and Regent Streets, the American Variety Store was opened and while they appreciated the extra business, it was not the sole purpose they were at the store on Boxing Day.

“[Business is] fairly well, but we didn’t really open for business, we were doing a restocking and reshuffling of the store,” said store manager Natasha Singh.

It was a good Christmas for the store, so opening Boxing Day was not a necessity.
However, opening on Boxing Day has been a norm for Gail Scholl of Gail’s Fashion for some time now. Scholl owns a boutique on Orange Walk where she has been operating for the past seven years. She went a step further and even opened on Christmas Day.

She opened because she knew there would be customers on the road.
“Today, people would be looking for stuff,” Scholl said.