Retailers received some early Christmas cheer with a successful week's trading in the run up to the festive season, despite the current economic crisis and credit crunch hitting many customers' pockets hard.*

Kristi Grayston, chairman of the Retail Division of the Chamber of Commerce, said a lot of shoppers left their buying late this year to boost traders' tills to similar levels of 2007, but that compared to 2006 business was well down.

Other store owners and managers agreed that trade had picked up, particularly over last weekend, with more sales planned after Christmas.

Ms Grayston, who is also the owner of Pulp & Circumstance, which has shops in Hamilton, Somerset and at the LFWade International Airport, said that retail sales seemed to be strong in recent weeks.

"I think there were a lot of people who left it to the last minute this year and certainly is started to turn around in the last couple of weeks,"

"Traditionally, even if it is a really bad year, the week before Christmas, if you are going to shop, you have to shop locally."

he said while retailers' sales figures were not in line with 2006, they were not far away from last year's numbers, which were impacted by the general election held inDecember.

Gaylynne Romeo, owner of Foreign Cargo, said her business was doing well in the last week before Christmas and was not feeling the economic pinch at the moment.

"We have been incredibly busy," she said. "Touch wood, it is going to stay like that until Wednesday.

"To be honest, the first Sunday that we opened this year we actually did better in comparison to the same period last year."

Ms Romeo, who has also set up part of her business atthe recently-launched Gallery 135, said there had been a lot of interest in her goods at the new location which all boded well for

the future.

"I have had a lot of responses from entrepreneur designers, which is good for future advertising," she said.

"It is all looking good in the long run and we are not feeling the recession right now."

Paula Clarke, CEO of the Gibbons Company Ltd., said sales had turned around in the past week and were helped by the Corporation of Hamilton offering free parking in its lots onSaturday - despite some people not realising it was free

"It really started turning on the Monday and Tuesday of last week, on Friday and obviously over the weekend," she said. "It is pretty strong at the moment as well.

"The free parking absolutely did help, but some people did not realise it was free parking and we might have benefited more if signs had been put up in the car parks to that effect, which is up to the Corporation of Hamilton to take care of, but it was still a very welcome move for retailers."

Ms Clarke said the department store would be holding late night shopping at 8 p.m. today and would be busy all the way through to 5 p.m. onChristmas Eve, with a big sale planned for Saturday, December 27 between 8.30 a.m. and 12 p.

"It is not as strong as previous years, but we have reworked our numbers and knew where we wanted to be and we are happy where we are at," she said.