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Holiday Buying Brought New Volume Records 9 Local Merchants Report'‘Bie-«rest In Store History’ Farmville merchants who didn't approach or set new record dollar and merchandise volumes during the rec' nt holiday-shopping are relatively f^w in number. A check of store owners and managers this week showed that for most business places, shop pers created "biggest sales in the history of the stoic." As one manager put it. "the traffic and demand were here, and the merchant who didn't get a record share should check his merchandising methods." The Herald survey also reveal ed that buying traffic in stores here hit probably an all - time high. Several merchants also re ported spotting folks from greater distances than in previous years. Parking Helps That pleasant experience they attribute to the town's growing popularity as a shopping center and to the excellent parking facil ities available. An interesting trend was re ported often enough in the sur vey to have been generally true throughout the buying area of the town. In the weeks aftrr the elec tion. buyers were conservative, cautious. It took good merchan dising to conclude a sale. Drop Caution Then in the latter weeks a No vember and as the holiday season approached, folks dropped their caution. "They really had it. to spend and thry spent it." was a common reply in the survey. "Looked like they finally figured things weren't going to pop wide open after all " one said. Merchants, however, were most ly in agreement that the trend is more and more toward a "buyer's market.' That is one m which the burden rests on the merchant. It means a return to the ' pick and choose" methods where buyers have to be really sold, instead of having to be con tent with whatever is available. "Folks had the money to spend but you had to produce what they wanted." one manager put it. "If your stocks wi re right you had a sale." * A Look Ahead The survey also revealed an other common agreement among merchants—business will continue good and upward at least through the next big merchandising per iod. spring and the apparel change-over. Their trade journals and then own opinions are alike. It looks good for six months Maybe long er. few like to hazard an opinion beyond the half-year mark.
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