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Crowds keep area retailers busy with purchases, returns the day after the holiday.
Circuit City returns clerk Adrienne Vanish helps Felix Mascelli Jr., left, Zachary Mascelli, Carisa Homschek and Felix Mascelli replace a video game that didn’t work on Christmas morning.
Times Leader staff photo/S. John Wilkin
Ann Kline, left, consults with salesperson Joan Brunges at Voitek TV & Appliances in Kingston Tuesday morning.
Times Leader staff photo/S. John Wilkin
KINGSTON – Fancy, expensive televisions were a draw for shoppers in the days leading up to Christmas, but refrigerators were big sellers at Voitek TV & Appliances Tuesday morning.
Even though her fridge started acting up a week ago as she was in the kitchen preparing holiday meals, Ann Kline of Nanticoke was glad it lasted through the weekend.
“I’m very glad I didn’t get a refrigerator for a gift,” she said as she checked out replacements for her venerable model.
Rather than call in a repairman, “We decided that after 21 years we’d be better off just to get a new one,” Kline said.
Others weren’t as fortunate. Voitek salesperson Joan Brunges said she sold three refrigerators Tuesday morning to people whose appliances had failed under holiday pressure.
“It’s nuts this morning,” said store manager Tom Santucci as he packed up a clothes dryer for delivery.
But televisions, particularly the flat-screen variety, were the stars leading up to the holiday. Santucci said new, complicated technology made people hesitant to buy last year, but that changed.
“This year more people were excited about it,” Santucci said. “They wanted to buy. These were serious, serious shoppers,” who weren’t put off by price tags well above the $1,000 mark. Manufacturers helped, he said, dropping wholesale prices throughout the season, sometimes by $200 over a few days.
Business was brisk at the Circuit City store in the Wilkes-Barre Township Commons, where the checkout line for new purchases frequently was longer that the one for exchanges.
Store director Todd Zimmerman credited the traffic to “more than usual after-Christmas deals.” The store opened at 8 a.m. and the number of shoppers picked up quickly.
“It’s a pretty positive day for us so far,” Zimmerman said, with sales handily exceeding returns at noon.
Wilfredo Dunes of Blakeslee stood in the exchange line, but not because he didn’t like his gift. Before Christmas he had bought a global positioning system for himself, but then realized that his father, a truck driver, could make better use of it.
But the gadget worked for only a minute after it was turned on, no matter how much they fiddled with the controls.
Jason Kauwell, of Plymouth, had a different problem. A video game placed under his tree was for the Microsoft Xbox system, but he has the newer Xbox 360. The game would play on his system, but would lack some features.
“You might as well get the best one you can,” he said.