The official estimates on retail revenue during the four-day inauguration weekend aren’t in yet, Chris Knudson, the senior vice president of marketing and communications at the D.C. Chamber of Commerce, said Wednesday. But the Chamber of Commerce expects good news from businesses.
It had originally estimated $700 million to $1 billion worth of business taking place during the inauguration festivities, Knudson said.
“Now,” he said, “we think it’ll exceed that.”
Neal Downing, a real estate appraiser from Largo, Md., capitalized on the amount of visitors attending the outdoor ceremonies.
“I’m selling hand warmers trying to keep America warm,” he said at the U St. Metro Station Monday night as he distributed HotHands hand warmer packets he kept in a plastic bag to a group of four women.
(It turned out that they needed them -- the National Weather Service averaged that the temperature Tuesday was 29 degrees and dropped as low as 16.)
Downing said he had ordered 640 pairs of handwarmers from the HeatMax company to sell during inauguration weekend. He said he sold 500 on Monday for $2 each and planned to get more Tuesday morning from a friend.
Kevin Luong, an assistant manager at CVS on 8th Street, four blocks from the Mall, saw similar sales of hand warmers. He said the store stocks gloves, hats, and hand and toe warmers for the winter.
“We sold out on inauguration day in the afternoon,” he said Wednesday, estimating that his store sold a few hundred hand warmers from Monday evening through Tuesday night. “As for gloves and hats, we had just a few left.”
The store charges 99 cents more for a two-pack of hand warmers than Downing’s price. One toe warmer pack sold for $1.99.
“CVS was crowded like a supermarket yesterday, even in the morning,” he added. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Knudson said retailers across the city experienced heightened business this week.
“Today [the Chamber’s] president [Barbara Land] was at Macy’s at Metro Center, and the store was practically cleaned out from the weekend,” he added.
He said that many visitors to the city had been unprepared for the cold weather, and businesses had sold large amounts of cold-weather gear like hats, gloves and long johns.
“There were two things people were concerned about -- one was snow, which we fortunately didn’t get, and the other thing was the cold,” he said. Businesses “anticipated that it would be cold and people would be outside for long periods of time.”
-- Katelyn Polantz
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