With the start of after-Christmas sales and the rush of bargain-seeking shoppers, retailers are now seeing their businesses peak for the season.

Although Christmas figures have not yet been tallied, department supervisors gave an overview of sales.

Katie Jane Orton, the buyer for the Hornburg Calypso stores - Max Mara, Calypso, Benetton and Voil? - said that after a slow Christmas, she was excited with yesterday's sales.

"Benetton always does well because it has a good selection and variety," she said. "Our new store, Max Mara is also doing well, and they also have a good selection.

"We try to give more options to so that shoppers won't go away to buy. So we try our best to give a wide selection by opening up new stores," she said.

After what he called a fairly good season for Trimingham's, company president, Lawrence Trimingham, said: "Today (Friday) was absolutely nuts. It has been extremely busy all day and we are very pleased."

Connie Ferreira, the store manager of Gibbons Company, also reported a fairly good business.

While many retailers claimed that their stores were busy and business was brisk, ideas of what exactly that means vary considerably. At lunchtime on Friday, Trimingham's was crowded with bargain-hunters and people returning gifts; but at one point, Max Mara, the luxury womenswear shop on Front Street, was nearly empty - one of the sales assistants was helping the only customer in the store, while the other stood by the cash register.

One store which acknowledged a slow business was Archie Brown, which the shop's manager attributed to a decrease in overseas visitors. "We had our ups and downs, but it was not a roaring business," Lois Bean, the shop's manager, said. "Archie Brown is more of a tourist attraction, so we did fairly well with that in mind."

English Sports Shop controller Paudie Walsh, reported that the season's sales have been consistent with previous years.

Roger Davidson, the president of Smith's said: " Our business was up a lot by promotion. Our stores in Dockyard and St. George's also did well, but I haven't seen figures as yet.

"The store has been busy today and generally, we did very well. The weather helped out a lot after it cleared up. Rain would have been disastrous."

Some retailers said that rain on the Saturday before Christmas had hurt sales.

"The rain put a real damper on shopping on Saturday," said Peter Cooper, president of A.S. Cooper & Sons, although he added that business had picked up during the two days before Christmas to make up for slow sales the weekend before.

Cooper's, like many other retailers, experienced sluggish sales at the end of November and beginning of December.

On Friday, Mr. Cooper said it was too early to forecast the performance of the Cooper's after-Christmas sale, which has tempted shoppers with discounts of up to 50 percent, although he said the store had been busy. The day after Boxing Day is typically the busiest for Cooper's during the post-Christmas season.

One retailer managed to attract significant traffic without offering discounts. Laurene Hayward, the accounting assistant at Computer City, said that the shop was almost as busy on Friday as it had been on Christmas Eve. She said many of the shoppers were buying items such as printer toner, paper and speakers - accessories to go with Christmas gifts - although a few had bought full computer systems.