Pawn shops see upswing in business around Christmas
The holiday shopping season means stores around Calgary are flooded with people hunting for the perfect gift.
Christmas can be a financial strain on people and local pawn shops also see an upswing in business around the holidays.
"Sometimes [people] need more money this time of year because they have the same monthly budget and of course Christmas doesn't happen every month so it's something they need extra money for," said John Sanford, co-owner of Rocky Mountain Pawn Shop.
Sanford says people come in to the store around the holidays to trade in or trade-up unwanted items, do holiday shopping or get a loan to help with holiday expenses.
"Sometimes what they'll do is they'll come in and they'll pawn maybe their expensive watch and they'll pick up some jewelry for their wife and maybe some sort of electronic devices for their kids," he said.
Websites such as Kijiji also see more traffic before and after Christmas.
“People prefer not to get caught re-gifting, so they are probably posting these items on Kijiji they may already have, or are not interested in," said Shawn McIntyre, community relationships manager for Kijiji Canada.
Sanford says pawn shops can remain quite busy until after Christmas is over, with either people purging items they don't want or coming in for a quick loan after getting their post-holiday credit card statements.
"Maybe that expensive watch they bought over Christmas, we’ll get to lend them some money on it in January and then they’ll probably pick it up in February,” said Sanford.
