What Gives? : Retailers Hope to Tap Holiday Trends
Stores are stocked with plenty of coffee machines, calendar organizers and bargain-priced clothing--a sign that the nation’s retailers are prepared for the predicted consumer demand for the practical and the cheap this holiday season.
However, retailers are also promoting singing Elvis figurines, electronic crossword puzzle solvers and $600 decorative amethyst formations for the home in a bid to generate excitement and additional sales.
Once again, the retail industry has placed its bets by stocking up on the goods it expects will be hot holiday gifts. The stakes in inventory selection may be higher this year because polls indicate shoppers may be spending less money than they did during last year’s surprisingly strong season.
Retailers are responding by offering consumers conventional goods at lower prices and by touting more of the offbeat how-about-that items designed to bring a tingle to holiday gift givers. Many retailers believe products bridging that gap--novelty versions of necessities such as dishes, towels, clothing and accessories--will be among the hottest products.
“Retailers are realizing that they have to be more creative,” said Evette Canceras, marketing director for the Beverly Center in Los Angeles. “Shoppers are value-oriented, but they also need some fun in their lives and will buy an unusual gift if they think it has value.”
The retail industry has a very broad definition of value. At one end are extravagances such as “Mozart, the Complete Collection,” which includes 108 compact discs for $1,124.99. At the other end is the more conventional boxed tie and suspender set for $29.95.
In between are practical holiday items such as Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck--or essential goods that carry those cartoon images, to be precise.
The image of vintage cartoons has been embossed on children’s clothing and adult ties and watches for decades. However, animation characters are now found on more humble merchandise--adult underwear and sleep wear, for example--and on more home furnishings such as sheets and comforters.
Towels bearing the Warner Bros. Looney Toons characters and T-shirts, watches and ties with cartoon images will be among the top sellers at Carter Hawley Hale’s Broadway stores, predicted Carter Hawley spokesman Bill Dombrowski.
“Consumers have been bargain-conscious and have showed a preference for practical gifts all year--and that won’t change now,” he said. “If priced right, gag gifts with a practical use sell particularly well.”
“Nearly all of our departments are selling items carrying cartoon characters,” said Kenneth Macke, chairman of Minneapolis-based Dayton Hudson Corp., operator of the Target and Mervyn’s chains.
Cartoon character merchandising tends to succeed when there is more economic uncertainty, said Alan Millstein, a New York-based industry analyst and publisher of Fashion Network Report.
“That kind of situation creates a yearning for better days--a sense of nostalgia among the middle-aged,” he said.
This year, retailers are refining their product selection process--ordering more goods they expect to be popular but maintaining smaller overall inventories--to avoid the kind of massive post-Christmas markdowns common during the lackluster holiday seasons of 1990 and ‘91, said Harvey Braun, chairman of retail services at Deloitte & Touche, a New York-based accounting firm.
There were also some year-end miscues in 1992. Among the sales duds in apparel last year were long dresses and see-through blouses for women and Western-style clothing, said Millstein.
He and retailers predict that cashmere sweaters, vests, silk shirts and hooded jackets for men and women will be strong sellers. Accessories such as wallets are traditionally popular holiday items, and some department store chains are trying to drum up interest in an unusual version--a woman’s wallet with a long strap that can be slung over a shoulder like a purse.
There are also novel twists among some home products. The Robinsons-May and Broadway chains have high expectations for the Star Trek telephone, a replica of the USS Enterprise that re-creates the television series’ “red alert” sound instead of the traditional ring.
Kitchen items such as espresso machines and pasta makers and recreation room products such as a game table that can be used for pool or table tennis will be popular, retailers say. And, because consumers are spending more time at home, retailers expect to sell a lot of compact disc players.
As for the bedroom, Radio Shack expects strong sales for its sleep machines, cordless or plug-in devices that are designed to induce slumber with a choice of sounds--forest rainfall and ocean surf among them--for $39.99.
Retailers are also offering a large number of unusual personal care products, said David Silver, a spokesman for Taubman Centers Inc., a Bloomfield Hills, Mich., company that operates the Beverly Center and 18 other shopping centers in 11 states. For example, there are humorous gifts such as mustache antifreeze (a gel designed to prevent facial hair freeze-up in cold climates) and indulgences such as seaweed body mud treatments and custom-made fragrances.
