Holiday sales ‘insane’ for some local retailers

But nationally, online sales continue to climb

Across the country as online holiday sales continue to climb, some local Maui businesses are bucking the trend and increasing sales at their brick-and-mortar stores.

"We are very blessed. We have a strong, local, loyal following," said Kim Ball owner of Shapers at Queen Ka'ahumanu Center and Hi-Tech Maui, who reported holiday sales up a tick from last year.

Ball said his water sports, skateboarding and surf wear stores face strong competition online as well as from Costco.

But with large boards for water sports, locals turn to Ball’s stores as "it’s hard to ship."

Both of his stores did well several days leading up to Christmas, as people could no longer order online and receive gifts in time, so that made them turn to local merchants, Kim reported Thursday afternoon.

Also at Ka’ahumanu, Na Koa Brands also got an influx of customers, especially leading up to Christmas.

"Oh my gosh, we were insane," said General Manager Shanna Kanahele Thursday afternoon. "It was crazy."

Kanahele said they tried their best to estimate what goods and how much was needed from last year’s sales, but "we were totally not expecting what came."

She spent time in the back of the store making jewelry just to keep up.

The store also has an online presence, but Kanahele said their brick-and-mortar sales topped those from the internet. They were still in the process of tallying sales Thursday.

Overall retail sales in the U.S. rose 3.4 percent between Nov. 1 and Dec. 24 compared to last year, according to early data from Mastercard SpendingPulse.

But online sales rose at a faster pace, up 18.8 percent from last year. Online shopping made up nearly 15 percent of total retail sales.

Department stores, which have been hit hard by the rise of online shopping, still had trouble getting shoppers in their doors, as total sales fell 1.8 percent, Mastercard said.

The Saturday before Christmas was the busiest shopping day in U.S. history, surpassing Black Friday, according to research firm Customer Growth Partners.

There were also six fewer days than last year for traditional Christmas shopping as Thanksgiving landed on Nov. 28, the latest possible date it could fall.

Both Kim and Kanahele reported stores were busy over the weekend but also on Christmas Eve.

Perhaps its the local touch and one-on-one service that brought customers into the local stores, they said.

Kanahele said the store offered a "wish list" where people would write down what they wanted for Christmas and gift-givers, especially husbands, would come into the store and purchase items off of the list.

The Na Koa Brands store that sells locally designed clothing for men and women, including shirts, hats, tank tops, dresses, jewelry, clutches and other items, also put up special deals that won customers over, Kanahele added.

For certain amounts spent at the store, customers could receive a key chain, a lanyard or even a tote bag.

"They love free stuff," Kanahele said of customers.

On Thursday, business was pretty steady, as people were using their gift cards and were still buying things to take off-island, she said.

Back at Hi-Tech, Ball said the YETI brand drinkware was hot this year, as he had to restock his shelves four or five times just two days before Christmas.

Also hot were the new GoPro cameras, along with skateboards and accessories, Ball said.

* Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.