After-Christmas sale prices bring out shoppers in Albany

ALBANY — Asked about her day-after-Christmas shopping outing at Wal-Mart, Toyin Oseni proudly pulled out her receipt.

Among the purchases filling her cart was a new Christmas tree for next year, and like all of the other items on her list it was bought at a steep discount during the post-Christmas sale.

“My tree, it just died at this Christmas,” she said. “I had it for 10 years, so I had to throw it away after this year. I told my kids I’ll buy a new tree the day after Christmas. You get it for 50% off.”

For the Christmas tree, the receipt showed a retail price of $120 that became $64.50 with the sale price. In all, Oseni spent a total of $145.52, with her other purchases also coming at steep discounts.

“Everything would have been $310,” she said. “I saw a lot of other people doing it, too. I said ‘There are a lot of people doing the same thing.’”

In the store, customers had the same idea, piling up rolls of wrapping paper for Christmases to come, as well as other marked-down deals.

“I saw a lot of clearance items,” Brian Stone, who was not out bargain shopping on Tuesday, said. “I saw people buying Christmas trees, ornaments. As far as me, I’m just doing regular shopping.”

At about 10:30 a.m., traffic was brisk inside the store, but earlier in the day the Wal-Mart parking lot had been packed with early birds looking for deals.

“It’s decent this time of day,” Stone said of the crowd inside.

Rolling her shopping cart out with bags of food, Dianna Carter said she saw lots of people hitting the Christmas items. For Carter, the outing was not done with an eye on deals.

“I’ve got a kid coming this weekend I wasn’t expecting, so I had to buy a little bit more,” she said. “So I got a couple of things.”

Staff Photo: Alan MauldinAlanMauldin[email protected]
https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/f714026fc83d6150ab9a4350b4169940?s=100&d=mm&r=g