After Holiday Shopping - KOAM TV 7

After Holiday Shopping

Whether you're looking for deals on Christmas ornaments or for the must have item Santa left off of his list after Christmas is a popular time to spend.

From the fiscal cliff to bad winter weather there are a lot of possibility as to why the 2012 pre Christmas shopping season was the worst year over year performance since 2008. Where analysts expected an increase between three to four percent for the season reality proved to be a growth of point seven percent.

According to a survey done by Master Card, shoppers out in force after Christmas account for about fifteen percent of the months sales.

"You know we closed on Christmas day, but we were open before and after and we didn't miss a step, business has been absolutely tremendous" says owner of Plato's Closet Doug Dahl.

With Forbes calling the 2012 Christmas season "the year of the gift cards" the time between Christmas and New Years seems as good a time as any to spend them.

"We sell a lot of gift cards, so mom and dad and grandma and grandpa have given gift cards, and so they are showing up now to redeem those gift cards" says Dahl.

The parking lots of rangeline in Joplin, the retail hub of the city seem particularly full and whether or not they are there to return gifts, find deals, or just buy groceries, they all seem to have opinions on after Christmas shopping.

"We're looking for some lights to go on the outside of our house for next year, and candy and whatever else we can find" says one shopper.

"Cheaper prices I guess, not so crazy about the people, but yeah the cheaper prices" says another shopper.

Where some stores in town say they are projecting soft sales numbers, others seem to think numbers have been higher than normal in their stores. Though actual returns won't be in until the end of the year. According to the National Retail Federation, the 2011, 2012 season saw sixty two billion dollars worth returns.