Local Retailers Report 5.5% Dip in 1991 Sales : Retailing: Lower sales figures for San Diego mall operator Hahn Co. and a drop in retail-related employment further illustrate the woes of the ’91 shopping year.
As if more were required, additional evidence of the depressed state of retailing in San Diego was made available Monday.
* Hahn Co., the San Diego-based operator of 49 regional malls across the country, said a late Christmas season shopping surge was not enough to lift its four San Diego County malls out of a sluggish December and a 1% drop in sales for all of 1991 compared with mall sales volume over the previous year.
* A monthly sampling of San Diego retailers by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Census Bureau revealed that San Diego County retail sales were down 5.5% over the first 11 months of the year compared with the same 11 months in 1990. The decline does not reflect the effect of inflation, which was pegged at between 3% and 4% last year.
* Retailers’ problems also were implicit in the drop in retail employment in San Diego County to 193,100 jobs as of December, 1991, off 2% from the 197,200 retail-related jobs at the end of December, 1990.
“1991 was a tough year, there is no way around it,” said Robert L. Sorensen, Hahn’s vice president for property management. “In California, it was partly a result of Desert Storm, compounded by the changes pending in the defense industry and the subsequent layoffs that are causing a drop in consumer confidence.”
Sorensen said statewide sales at Hahn-operated malls declined by about 3%, whereas sales at malls outside the state were actually up between 3% and 4% compared with 1990. Sorensen expects a small increase in statewide mall sales in the first half of 1992, but in part only because 1991 was such a weak year.
Hahn operates Horton Plaza and University Towne Centre malls in San Diego, North County Fair in Escondido and Parkway Plaza in El Cajon.
The Greater San Diego Chamber of Commerce is projecting a 4.4% decline in retail sales for the county for all of 1991, a figure that is unadjusted for inflation. A decline in retail sales volume is considered a key economic indicator because it is a measure of both economic robustness and consumer confidence, said Max Schetter, director of the chamber’s economic research department.
“The war had an impact because we had more than 80,000 military personnel out of the county (during part of 1991), and their families who stayed behind were not in a spending mood, nor was much of the rest of San Diego,” Schetter said.
The Christmas shopping season was disappointing for most area retailers. “Some of the discount chains did OK, but overall the Christmas shopping season was pretty mediocre,” Schetter said.
Statewide, 1991 retail sales were down 1.7% through the end of November compared with the same 11 months in 1990, according to the Census Bureau sampling, whereas U.S. retail sales were up 0.7%. Neither the state nor the U.S. figures are adjusted for inflation.
Sorensen of the Hahn Co. said Christmas shopping began to surge around Dec. 20, igniting “the most intense four days of shopping we’ve ever seen.” But sales at California malls operated by Hahn were still down 5% from the previous year’s, he said.
Asked to single out strong performances, Sorensen said the Gap apparel chain “bucked the trend” and rolled up healthy increases. Sales were particularly weak at jewelry and housewares stores, he said.
