Stuffed animal dolls are well-loved by the Chinese.
MIRI: The bright red and gold ornaments for the Chinese New Year celebration are flying off the shelves as the Chinese community prepares for the coming festive season.
A visit to one of Miri’s most popular shops selling a wide variety of decorative ornaments revealed brisk sales.
“Our stock has been put up for sale since the end of December and unsurprisingly, customers patronised the shop several times looking for different decorative items during each visit,” said a representative who wanted to be identified only as Tang.
Apart from the must-have lanterns, wall stickers with auspicious Chinese calligraphy, couplets to welcome the new spring, decorative lights and others, a wide variety of animal figurines like dogs and dragons are also available. As this year is the Year of the Dog, stuffed toy dogs are naturally best sellers.
Tang revealed that a slight increase in price is unavoidable due to the increase in transportation charges.
“We try to absorb the increase in cost and only increase our prices slightly to keep our customers happy, as seasonal business is not easy to manage.”
“Competition from online stores affects the local businesses too,” she added.
“Those who love to shop online have already bought the stuff a couple of months ago and local businesses feel the pinch.
“However, elderly folk do not like online shopping and prefer to buy locally. To be honest, our prices are usually almost the same as those bought online and sometimes cheaper as we ship in bulk,” she said.
Tang added that they are anticipating better sales
this year with business picking up just before the festive celebration.