Holiday Season Shopping Starts Slowly, Stingily

Despite President Bush’s best efforts to lead a parade of consumers to the nation’s malls, Friday’s traditional post-Thanksgiving kickoff to the holiday shopping season was remarkably slow and stingy, particularly in Southern California, once considered a protected retail mecca.

At malls from Ventura to San Diego, shoppers reported that they plan to scale back their holiday budgets and concentrate whatever purchases they do make on necessities. Baking is back, cards are replacing gifts, cash is more popular than credit, and deep discounts are the order of the day.

Large numbers of retailers across the country tried for the first time Friday to lure shoppers out of bed with early-bird specials, but even that didn’t spur the kind of response that they had hoped for. Some stores opened at 5 a.m. in Atlanta, 7 a.m. in Los Angeles and 8 a.m. in San Francisco.

At South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, nearly every parking space was taken by noon and traffic was spilling over to the Crystal Court across the street. Veteran shoppers and clerks said it looked as busy, or busier, than last year.

Still, even at such pricey stores as Cartier, Tiffany’s and Chanel, some shoppers said they are being thriftier this year.

“We’re staying with quality items, but getting fewer of them,” said one dapper-looking San Diego man, who declined to give his name, after buying a pair of alligator shoes.

But not everyone could afford fancy alligator shoes. Juana Garcia of Garden Grove shopped Friday at the Fiesta Marketplace in downtown Santa Ana, which attracts predominantly Latino shoppers.

“Since I’m not working right now, this year there will not be any gifts, or very few at least,” said Garcia, who was shopping with her daughter, Angelica. “There’s so much unemployment among everyone that I think we will all be giving less gifts.”

At the Payless shoe store in the Crenshaw Plaza in Baldwin Hills, Adassa Sinclair was buying winter boots for her four grandchildren to wear to school--not the toys that she purchased last year.

Some consumers, like Kathy and Bob Booker of West Covina, weren’t buying anything. While the Bookers, who both lost their jobs this year, still made their annual pilgrimage with their five children to the Plaza in West Covina, this year they didn’t go there to shop; they went only to see Santa Claus.

Pointing to her five-year-old daughter, Kathy Booker whispered: “She wants a B-I-K-E and I can’t buy it for her.”

Retailers and analysts said the opening day of the holiday shopping season only reinforced earlier predictions that the nation is in for another Scrooge-like Christmas, with consumers fearfully hoarding their cash rather than following Bush’s pleas for a consumer-led exodus from the country’s economic woes.

Kenneth A. Macke, chairman of Dayton-Hudson Corp., which operates Target and Mervyn’s stores among others, said he expects to do no better this Christmas than last year and that nothing is changing his mind about that.

“The consumer is very value smart,” Macke said. “They’re trying to lower their risk as much as possible.” Some, he suggests, are holding out, awaiting even deeper discounts than those already in the stores.

In its most recent survey released Friday, the Conference Board reported that the American household is expected to spend $375 on Christmas gifts this year, down from $395 last year. The private business research group said 1991 Christmas sales are expected to be close to $36 billion, about 3% less than last year--and a far cry below the typical good year, in which sales rise from 6% to 10%.

“Nothing we’ve seen so far changes what we have been saying will happen this Christmas,” said Richard Giss, a retailing specialist for the accounting firm of Deloitte & Touche in Los Angeles. “We are off to a very slow start.”

As had been expected, business was most brisk Friday at discount and lower-priced outlets, while upscale department and fashion stores, which prospered in the 1980s, were suffering.

Stephanie Rios of Temple City came with her mother to the Costa Mesa Marketplace swap meet at the Orange County Fairgrounds.

“I’m shopping the same amount (as previous years), just more wisely,” Rios said. “And everyone is getting more practical gifts this year.”

“Last year, it was department stores. This year, I’m a Kmart shopper,” said Kim Applegate of San Diego, as she browsed in one of the city’s Kmart stores. “This year, I’m more broke and I have more people to shop for.”

At a Target store in Northridge, where row upon row of items--from electronics goods to toys to gift wrap--were on sale, about 100 shoppers were waiting outside the doors for the 7 a.m. opening. By 9 a.m. the lot was full and all the shopping carts were in use.

At Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance, which serves the region’s primary aerospace employment center, merchants said the cash registers were not as full as they ought to be, in part because of the large number of layoffs at nearby defense plants.

“The prevailing economic environment is less positive than last year at this time. Gross national product is marginally lower, the unemployment rate is higher and consumers are less confident about the present state of the economy,” said Fabian Linden, executive director of the Board’s Consumer Research Center.

Consumers say they wish it were otherwise.

Mary Guevara, a 54-year-old grocery cashier from Piru, said she spent $500 last year buying gifts for her seven children and 11 grandchildren--and will try to do the same with less this Christmas. “We’re trying to see how far we can make our money stretch,” Guevara said. “It’s going to be very hard.”

Shoppers also reported a decided reluctance to use credit cards, preferring to pay cash rather than increase their debts at a time of uncertainty about their jobs and the economy.

“If I can’t pay in cash then I won’t buy it,” said Loretta McCoy, a single mother who was shopping for school clothes at Sears Roebuck & Co. in Crenshaw Plaza.

It was no different across the nation.

In Atlanta, Wal-Mart stores opened at 5 a.m. with a four-hour “Early Bird Christmas Blitz One Day Extravaganza” featuring a Murray 20” bicycle for $45 rather than the $54.97 regular price. There were even boxes of doughnuts to greet the early risers.

At Bloomingdales in Manhattan, where bag-laden shoppers normally vie for empty cabs, the situation was reversed; hungry cab drivers circled the block hunting for passengers.

In Denver, Carolyn Bayliss, 49, said worries about her job are dictating how she spends this holiday season. A program security analyst at defense contractor Martin Marietta, Bayliss confided that she expects to shop at thrift stores for her grandchildren--and then wrap the second-hand clothing “just like they’re new.”

Even those who say they haven’t yet been hit by the weak economy were paying close attention to prices Friday. Some hoped poor retail sales would force discounted prices down even further.

“You see this ‘1/2 off’ sign? It’s going to be 75% off soon,” said Covina resident Kenneth Elston, 33, explaining why he and his wife, Dorienne, were merely window shopping Friday at the West Covina mall.

Retailers said there was a noticeable drop from last year’s post-Thanksgiving mall traffic and sales.

“This season is much slower,” said Richard Kim, shoe manager at the Fiesta Bargain Store in Santa Ana. “People keep talking about the recession, about having less money. They are looking for chipped, damaged merchandise so they can get a lower price for it.”

But there were exceptions. Business was healthy at a Miller’s Outpost store in Huntington Center, where 12 customers were waiting in one checkout line Friday morning. “People are itching to get out and buy,” said store manager Kenna Grob.

Even for the Salvation Army. Outside the Sears Roebuck & Co. store in Santa Monica, volunteer Lynda Elizabeth Shough jingled her bell incessantly trying to rouse donations for the destitute.

“Money is a whole lot tighter,” she reported. Instead of contributing $5, she added, “People are dropping 50 cents this year.”

The following Times staff writers contributed to this story: Patrice Apodaca, Rose Apodaca, Ron Russell, David Haldane, Kim Kowsky, Kevin Cullinane, Irene Chang, Marc Lacy, Jeffrey L. Rabin, Jesus Sanchez, Nancy Rivera Brooks, Stuart Silverstein, Chris Woodyard, Adrianne Goodman and Chris Kraul in Southern California; Victor Zonana in New York; Ann Rovin in Denver; Edith Stanley in Atlanta; Lazzareschi reported from San Francisco.