by Jim Beller

Rogersville -- Despite a national trend of disappointing sales, local merchants say this holiday shopping season has been strong.

"We exceeded our sales from last year," said Brenda Frazier, store manager of Walmart in Rogersville.

"Sales were great," added Mary Ellen Elkins, business manager of U-Save. "We were really pleased with the customers who came in."

"Wonderful," s how manager Dennis Shortt described sales at Food City, 66 Shopping Center. "We've had a really good year."

"Everything's good," echoed Roudy Henley, manager at Food City, East Gate Plaza.

Retailers expect business to continue strong into January then restart to normal business.

"Your first three weeks of January are pretty strong," Frazier said. "Otherwise, you go back to your average business in February and into March."

Frazier said Walmart is holding a 50 percent off Christmas item sale. A "hard markdown" of 75 percent was set for a day this week.

"We do an annual Coke can sale each December," Elkins said, "At the register we have a 24-pack of Coke. Written on the bottom of each can is a discount from 15 to 50 percent the customer can save off their entire gift ware purchase. They know they'll get at least 15% off.

We'll have all of our Christmas merchandise on sale in January," Elkins said. "Customers will be looking to come back and find some of these items on sale."

Elkins said popular items this season were Webkinz plush toys and Jim Shore's Heartwood Creek merchandise.

Grocery store sales are typically strong around Christmas and New Year's. "It does tend to pick up during the holiday season," Shortt said. "We usually go back to our normal, everyday customer business the week after New Year's, "Short said. "Then we have to get started after Halloween preparing for Thanksgiving and Christmas. We get prepared pretty far in advance."

According to the Associated Press, Mastercard Advisors, a division of the credit card company, reported a 3.6 percent national increase from Nov. 23 to Dec. 24 in customer spending by credit car, check, or cash, down from last year's gain of 6.6 percent. Excluding gas purchased, national holiday sales were up only 2.4 percent. High gas prices and a shaky economy contributed to disappointing national sales figures. Local merchants, however, expressed contentment with holiday sales.

"We were really pleased to see people shopping in Rogersville and not going out of town to get stuff," Elkins said.