‘Tis the Season to Shop, but It’s Off to Slow Start : Retailing: Shoppers flocked to stores on the traditional first day of Christmas shopping. But sales in the Southland were called disappointing.
America pushed aside the turkey and trimmings Friday and instead nibbled on the Christmas merchandise in the nation’s shopping malls.
Although thousands of shoppers flocked to the stores, many retailers and consumers found the turnout--and appetite for buying--somewhat light for a day that often is the busiest of the Christmas season.
“It’s a quiet start,” said Leonard Barron, a salesman at J. R. Jonathan’s shoe store in the Sherman Oaks Galleria, at midday.
Mona Rad, manager of Petite Sophisticate women’s clothing store in the Glendale Galleria, said: “Before, money was no object. Now they (shoppers) are watching what they’re spending.”
The disappointing sales at many stores throughout the Southland and the rest of the nation squared with the predictions of a number of retail industry experts. Among other things, analysts have said that shoppers may be getting worried about signs of a softening economy and bored with the merchandise retailers are offering this year.
Terry Norton, a contractor from Burbank, is a case in point. Taking a break from shopping at the Glendale Galleria, Norton said he expects to spend about 15% less than last year on gifts for his friends and family.
“The spirit just doesn’t seem to be here,” Norton said.
His family’s Christmas is “going to be nice but it’s going to be less. I’m not going to buy the big-ticket items.”
“All year, it’s sale, sale, sale,” Norton added. “Who wants to go to another sale?”
All the same, the retailers generating the most enthusiasm among customers seemed to be relying heavily on sharp markdowns--a practice that once was limited mainly to the days immediately after Christmas.
Some of the markdowns stemmed from turmoil in the retailing industry that has brought such major companies as Campeau Corp. and L. J. Hooker Corp. to their knees. In Manhattan, for example, shoppers mobbed the flagship store of B. Altman, an old-line chain that, with the exception of one store, is being liquidated by Hooker to pay creditors.
Customers waited outside in wintry temperatures for up to an hour for their turn inside. Barbara Haskett, a B. Altman spokeswoman, said frantic shoppers “were running up the down escalator to get upstairs, so we had to turn both escalators off temporarily. It was absolutely overwhelming.”
Two shoppers at Limited Express in Santa Ana--Pat Almeida of Santa Ana and her daughter, Kristi Bowin--found discounts of 40% on merchandise with prices already slashed in half. “We bought five pieces--a skirt, a jumper, a top, a coat-sweater, a pair of pants--and three sets of earrings--all for $117,” said Bowin. “Everything was on sale.”
Those specialty shops with genuine bargains, in fact, seemed to find no shortage of customers. At L. A. Eyeworks at South Coast Plaza, customers began lining up at 8:30 a.m.--30 minutes before the eyeglass store opened--to take advantage of the annual sale that brought discounts as high as 70% and eyeglass frames for as little as $10.
For the most part, however, the shopping at South Coast and in at least two other top Orange County malls, Newport Center/Fashion Island and Westminster Mall, didn’t get busy until late in the morning.
Several shoppers at the University Towne Centre mall in San Diego, where the economy is heavily influenced by military spending, expressed concern over proposed defense budget cuts.
Paul Fisher, who works at defense contractor McDonnell Douglas in San Diego, said: “We’ll spend pretty much as we always do, although we may stay within our budget more. We won’t be as extravagant.”
Bus driver Joe Anderson, shopping at San Diego’s downtown Horton Plaza, said he is cutting back on his Christmas spending. “The rent’s going up, the gas and electricity rates are going up. Things are much too expensive here.”
Anderson said he is going to offer his children a choice between a Christmas present and “a crisp $10 bill.”
His prediction: “They’ll take the bill.”
In some of the less-successful malls in the immediate Los Angeles area, the going was particularly slow for the day after Thanksgiving.
At the Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw mall, plenty of empty tables were available in the food court at noon. The biggest crowd was at the line to take pictures with the mall’s Santa Claus.
Some of those in line said they didn’t intend to do much shopping, but that they had the day off and it seemed the best time to get pictures of their children with Santa.
The Fox Hills Mall in Culver City was so quiet in the morning that you could slide Santa down any aisle in the three-story plaza and not clip too many shoppers on the tote bag. Regardless of the “sale” signs that bristled in most stores, the watchword at the recently renovated mall was “quiet.”
With few customers, service at the mall was good, particularly at the small shops strung between anchor stores May Co., The Broadway and J. C. Penney.
At 11 a.m., four clerks circled a single shopper at Kay Jewelers. See’s Candies: two workers, no shoppers. Personal Touch: two workers, one shopper. Sunglass Hut: two clerks, one shopper. The Gap: seven clerks, 15 shoppers.
“It’s empty, very empty,” said Michelle Adams of Los Angeles, a regular Fox Hills shopper. Adams clutched an armful of shopping bags as she wandered through the quiet mall. “I’ve been shopping since September, while I have the money. I’m here today because May Co. is having a big sale.”
Aside from trying to attract shoppers with price cuts, retailers also tried to provide some extra conveniences. Target stores, for example, opened at 7 a.m. and many others began business at 8 a.m.
Cathy Hulac of Sherman Oaks was one of the early birds. By 6:45 a.m., Hulac already was posted in front of the Woodland Hills Target store waiting for the glass doors to slide open so she could get a jump on the traditional day-after-Thanksgiving crush of shoppers. She was surprised that the crush never came.
“We went right up to the checkout stand” without waiting, Hulac said, after finishing about 2 1/4 hours of shopping. “It was amazing.”
Even if the overall trend appeared to be one of disappointing sales for retailers, there were some hot spots.
By 9 a.m., the big Houston Galleria shopping mall was packed. At the Omni, a downtown shopping mall in Miami with mostly business and tourist customers, Jordan Marsh’s general manager, Joe Mazloom, reported that “business has been very good. People seem to be shopping much earlier this year.”
There were even signs of hope for retailers in the San Francisco Bay area, where merchants expressed optimism that the Christmas season would revive sales that have been sluggish since the Oct. 17 earthquake.
Near the epicenter of the temblor in Santa Cruz, retailers whose shops were destroyed in the quake opened for business in hastily erected tents near the downtown Pacific Garden Mall.
“I never expected to be back in business for the holiday season,” said April Shen, owner of the Shen Gallery.
Halladie Plaza, on the corner of Market and Powell streets and the heart of San Francisco tourism, was buzzing with action Friday morning. Shoppers formed lines that snaked around for nearly two blocks to ride the famous trolley cars. Food, T-shirt and jewelry vendors lined Powell street, as Christmas music blared from speakers.
In Manhattan, throngs of eager shoppers moved more quickly on foot than the city’s cabs and buses, caught in the gridlocked start of New York’s annual Christmas season rush. With nearly five inches of Thanksgiving snow, the first on that holiday in more than half a century, there was no shortage of people in the Christmas shopping spirit.
At Bloomingdale’s--the crown jewel of the otherwise crumbling Campeau retailing empire--shoppers from as far away as England and Kansas have flocked to the city’s flagship store. They bought up, among other things, such novelty items as a plastic foam brick wall for people to bang against their head, a “primal scream” golf ball and the $25 worry doll, a pliable pillow that dispenses prerecorded messages to make you feel better about mounting bills.
Times staff writers Patrice Apodaca, Maria La Ganga, Nancy Rivera Brooks, Linda Williams and Irene Chang in Los Angeles, Mary Ann Galante in Orange County, Chris Kraul in San Diego, Lisa Romaine in New York, Liane Hart in Houston, Ann Rovin in Denver, Tracy Shryer in Chicago, Anna M. Virtue in Miami and Suzette Parmley in San Francisco contributed to this report.
