Holiday Buying Season Gets Off to a Fast Start

Despite soggy, blustery weather in many parts of the country, shoppers showed up in droves Friday as retailers kicked off their traditional Christmas shopping season with early store openings and special promotions.

“It was as if somebody shot off a starter’s gun at 10 o’clock,” said Wayne Adcoe, assistant general manager of the stylish Galleria mall in Houston. “The place is absolutely jammed.”

From New York to Southern California, crowds of high-spirited shoppers started arriving at stores as early as 7 a.m. Although the industry’s doom-and-gloomers had feared that Santa would drop a lump of coal into retailers’ stockings this year in the form of disappointing sales, many merchants seemed encouraged Friday by free-spending customers.

At shopping centers throughout San Diego County, indoor parking lots were filled by 10 a.m. and latecomers anxiously circled the lots in vain attempts to find a dry spot.

By noon, traffic in downtown San Diego was backed up along Broadway, as shoppers vied for parking spots near Horton Plaza, open for its first Christmas season.

At 2 p.m. along Interstate 8 in Mission Valley, traffic was lined up for half a mile at exits to Fashion Valley and Mission Valley Shopping Center.

“If anything, rainy weather helps us,” said Lesley Binder, director of marketing at Horton Plaza. “On a sunny day, shopping centers compete with attractions like the San Diego Zoo, a day at the beach or water skiing on Mission Bay.

“We figured our (10 a.m.) traffic count at between 5,000 to 7,000 people per hour, which is close to where we stood on our opening day on Aug. 9,” said Binder. She said the wind-blown rain chased shoppers “directly into stores, which is good for our merchants.”

Other mall operators agreed that the rain wasn’t enough to slow bargain-seeking shoppers.

“Rain and shopping mix in a wet sort of way,” quipped a spokeswoman for Mission Valley Center. “There are tons of shoppers out there. With all the people out there shopping, though, it’s hard to say if there’s been a decline from last year.”

In Minneapolis, which had three to four inches of snow and below-zero temperatures, “it wasn’t the kind of weather that drives people out of their houses and, even if it does, their cars don’t start,” said George Hite, a spokesman for Dayton Hudson’s Target division, a chain of discount stores.

“I suspect we’d be doing more business if the weather cooperated,” he said.

Hite said weather dampened sales in the Upper Midwest but that stores in Texas and California had encouraging results.

6 Days Shorter This Year

Even though they started wooing shoppers weeks ago with heavy promotions, merchants have bemoaned the fact that the traditional selling period is six days shorter this year than last, because Thanksgiving fell at the tail end of the month.

“We’ve only got four shopping weekends between Thanksgiving and Christmas,” said a spokeswoman for San Diego’s Fashion Valley Center. “Consequently, some of the department stores have had many pre-Christmas sales, and the buying season has been spread out more and more each year.”

Changing work patterns, too, have forced many merchants to start sales earlier, mall representatives said.

Women, the traditional post-Thanksgiving shoppers, are being forced to plan more, said Sherry Jones, director of marketing for University Towne Centre in La Jolla. “A lot of ladies are working now,” Jones said, “and they need the tree-trimming items and the gift-wrapping services earlier than (the day after) Thanksgiving.”

Although Friday’s preliminary figures were encouraging, few merchants seemed eager to revise upward their projections that the industry will show only modest gains of 5% to 7% for the fourth quarter over last year.

However, two big differences distinguish the retailing environment this year from last, when retailers started drastic price cutting early in the holiday season. Having learned a harsh lesson in 1984, stores have been more careful in their purchases and have kept better track of inventories.

Key Factor

As a result, while bargains will be plentiful, they will not put merchants’ profits as much at risk. Retailers view that as a key factor in a season that often accounts for more than half their annual profits.

Although most merchants said it was too soon to release figures, generally they indicated that sales were strong. Carter Hawley Hale Stores, the Los Angeles-based parent of the Broadway, Neiman-Marcus and Emporium Capwell, had strong business across the country. However, “we want to get further into the Christmas season before we determine whether we have to make any adjustments,” spokesman Bill Dombrowski said. The retailer has been geared for a season punctuated by heavy promotions and stiff competition.

San Diego’s malls have uncorked some novelties in efforts to draw shoppers, especially those with children. Last Saturday, Fashion Valley Center hired the Budweiser Clydesdales to carry Santa Claus into the mall.

“We had them last year, and people seemed to come (just to see the Clydesdales) and leave,” said a mall spokeswoman. “This year, we had 2% more people, and they came early and stayed late.”

In a new twist, Horton Plaza and Mission Valley Center had their Santas arrive on Friday night, instead of the more traditional Saturday morning arrival. In addition to the traditional American Santa Claus, Horton Plaza also featured “St. Nicholas,” described by Binder as “more of an 18th- or 19th-Century European character.”

At one store where bargains were as easy to find as beer at a barbecue, early signs proved disappointing. The family-owned Sakowitz specialty store in Houston was hoping for history-making crowds this Christmas, which observers see as a make-or-break period for the financially troubled chain. But two hours after the 10 a.m. opening, the parking lot was less than half-full. Some shoppers might have been deterred by the cold mist and slippery roads.

In Miami, nice weather brought lots of shoppers to suburban malls and stores. One K mart, which like other stores in the chain opened at 7 a.m., benefited from its nearness to Miami International Airport.

“We get a lot of island traffic--people from Barbados and Trinidad,” said Walter Holbrook, the store’s manager. “They go straight to our luggage department and buy the largest suitcase they can find. They pack the things as we’re checking them out, and then they call a taxi and go right back to the airport.”

However, the Omni Mall in downtown Miami appeared to be no busier than normal. The biggest lines were for the center’s theaters, which were showing such films as “King Solomon’s Mines” and the ubiquitous “Rambo.”

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Alan Goldstein and Nancy Rivera in Los Angeles, Robert Hanley in Orange County, Lorna Nones in Miami, Joanne Harrison in Houston, Dallas Jamison in Denver, Siobhan Flynn in New York and Stephanie Droll in Detroit.