Stores that slashed prices on seasonal and festive merchandise were crammed yesterday with shoppers taking advantage of the holiday to take in big bargains.

While some of the smaller stores remained closed, the larger department stores, such as Trimingham's, Cooper, and Gibbons were packed with the large crowds partly because they offered the most significant price reductions.

Lawrence Trimingham, president of Trimingham's, described yesterday's sale at his store as "crazy".

"There are a lot of people in the shop, a lot of people in Hamilton. We're advertising today up to 50 percent so we have a range of discounts," Mr. Trimingham said.

"There are even more people than before Christmas and a lot of people have the day off today so they are taking advantage by coming in and folks are getting some good deals."

As at other stores most of the items on sale were either seasonal or clearance merchandise.

Peter Cooper said A.S. Cooper crowds were out yesterday seeking the many bargains his staff had to offer.

"Business has been very brisk today with everything on sale. Hamilton is quite busy in fact," he said.

While the streets were clearly full of bargain hunters, many smaller speciality stores remained closed while others opened without holding any sales at all. Yvonne Cacace, who owns Stefanel, Mambo, Sasch and Quattro said that despite not putting items on sale, business was still booming yesterday.

She said: "We are seeing regular sales and Christmas exchanges today but we have been very busy. People are coming in to use their gift certificates. They exchange and then they spend more money because they get other things as well and then we have our New Year's window up so they coming in to look at that stuff too," she said.

As for her reasons for not offering sales on a traditional day when shoppers tend to expect them, she said: "We have a very strong feeling that if you just bought something for Christmas you are not going to want to see it on sale two days later. We like to give our customers the opportunity to come and exchange their gifts and not feel like there is my thing on sale and I just bought that two days ago."

David Hamshere, managing director of Tess Ltd., the parent company to the English Sports, Marks and Spencer, Crown Colony, Cecile's, Aston & Gunn and the Levi's Shop offered bargains at all his stores yesterday.

"It has been busy today," he said. "We are getting a lot of locals. There certainly are tourists around but of course Government, banks and international companies ? the majority ? are not working.

"It is a holiday because they have an extra Saturday to take off so that gives them a great opportunity to come to shop with their families. It has been good."

He like the other retailers who spoke with said that the whole Christmas season had been better than past years.

"There is more money in circulation and we worked longer hours to achieve that number. We opened Sundays and that helped and the week of Christmas week we were open till 9 p.m. in the evening which gave us a healthy boost to our business," Mr. Hamshere said.

While Mr. Trimingham says it is hard to compare this year's performance with last year's due to his company's integration with the neighbouring Smith's department store, he said: "On overall performance, we're pretty pleased with how things went."

Ms Cacace said that her season was very good as well.

"We had two of our stores perform better than last year two equally as good as last year and then the fifth one we can't compare because it is new," she said adding that it was partly because the stores had a very good collection to offer and partly because she has a "very loyal local clientele".

Mr. Cooper pointed out that compared to last year, retailers benefited from an additional two shopping days ahead of Christmas.

However, he said his company was up over last year and that the Buy Bermuda campaign had helped out.