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EASTCHESTER, N.Y. -- By 7:05 a.m. on Monday morning, all of the parking spaces were taken in front of Lord & Taylor located on the Eastchester/Scarsdale border.
Lord & Taylor employee Janet Retta greeted shoppers with $20 discount coupons, a special in-store gift given only to those who got up early and went to the store.
"I would say we have had about 200 shoppers come though so far," Retta said at 7:10 a.m. "It looks like we are going to have a busy day."
At the Galleria Mall in White Plains, Johnny Altman, who works at Leather Lounge in the mall and lives in the city, said there were far fewer shoppers than usual at the White Plains shopping mecca.
"The mall was supposed to open at 7 and we don't have a lot of business. There isn't a lot of flow. There's been spurts but it's been an off buying year," Altman said. "This whole season is off. From what I understand there will be one or two stores closing after New Years because business hasn't been good."
Isabel and Louis Garcia walked to the mall from their White Plains home. The Garcia's were a little disappointed with what they found at the Galleria.
"They're out of a lot of stuff. We're mostly looking for gifts for people who we haven't seen yet because the best time to get a Christmas card is the day after," said Louis Garcia
Isabel thought the deals weren't good.
"They're okay," she said. "I thought they'd be better."
Valentina DiNardo was seen perusing the shelves of iPhone cases Monday afternoon at the Jefferson Valley Mall in Yorktown. Since Santa didn't bring her an iPhone, DiNardo took it upon herself to shop and purchase her own iPhone and case amid other shoppers who received them as gifts.
"It's been pretty hectic, but it's kind of what I was expecting," she said. For Raj Kapur, the owner of the toy store Big Top in the Jefferson Valley Mall said the afternoon had still been pretty slow, and people coming in to buy toys was pretty equal to those returning them as well. "I'm still hopeful more people will come in as the afternoon goes on," he said. "We have sales going on, everything is buy one get another half off since it's the day after Christmas."But in Eastchester, it was nearly standing-room only in the shoe department, where almost all of the hundreds of shoes and boots were marked 50 percent off.
"This is what we do for fun," said Jenny Listman of Mount Vernon, who was there with her 16-year-old daughter Maya.
Monica Brooks of New Rochelle was working off some of her holiday dinner at her gym when someone came in and told her about the $20 coupon being handed to customers at Lord and Taylor.
"I rushed through my workout and came right over," Brooks said. "I really wanted a new pair of boots."
Back in White Plains, Patti Martins, with sons Thomas, 15, and Dylan, 12, of Greenwich, Conn. started a new post-holiday shopping tradition three years ago.
"We do Christmas shopping always the day after. Ever since they were old enough not to believe in Santa, they haven't gotten a present on the day of," Martins said, noting she was shopping mainly for video games and clothes. "It's a lot less stress and the kids are happy because they get everything they want. Now, if I could just get everybody else to sign off on it."
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