Merchants Ring in an Increase in Sales : Retail: Holiday shoppers bought more and spent more than in 1992, report merry shop owners and mall merchants from Pasadena to Industry.

With sales at many stores still brisk last week, retailers from Pasadena to Pomona said they found purse strings looser this holiday season. Many reported substantial sales gains from 1992.

In Old Pasadena, some small businesses recorded holiday sales increases in the double digits, as did several shops in San Gabriel Valley malls.

Store managers in Old Town said cashiers worked overtime the day before Christmas to keep up with mobs of last-minute shoppers.

To hear one manager at the California Basket Co. on Colorado Boulevard tell it, business hasn’t been better in six years. The store reported a boost this holiday season in corporate orders for its $65 to $200 gift baskets helped spur a 60% increase in sales.

“More customers were buying, and customers were buying more,” said the store’s executive vice president, Alexander Toland, who echoed many area retailers. “People last year didn’t even want to pay the shipping fees.”

Down the street, the Crate & Barrel kitchenware store reported sales were up roughly 8% from 1992’s holiday shopping season, from the day after Thanksgiving through Christmas.

Most analysts expect retail sales nationwide to be up 4% to 5% for the 1993 holiday season, compared with last year. Some analysts predict Southland holiday sales have lagged behind, showing an increase of 1% to 3% compared with a year ago.

*

Sales were not robust everywhere in the San Gabriel Valley. Managers at the REI outdoor equipment store in San Dimas said sales were running about equal to last year’s. And some mall officials said jewelers who have not changed their inventory to meet the demands of more price-conscious shoppers have not fared well this holiday season.

But overall, sales Valleywide--from an Industry gun dealer to a Pasadena lingerie shop--were up substantially and post-Christmas sales were strong, in some cases as strong as they were the week before Christmas.

“I couldn’t tell you how much sales are up this season because we’re still very, very busy,” said Michael Maloney, manager of the L.A. Tronics store on Foothill Boulevard in Pasadena. “The Christmas season is still on in our store.”

Throughout the Southland, the lure of even bigger savings after Christmas prompted a flood of shoppers that surpassed 1992’s dramatic post-Christmas turnout.

Indeed, last Sunday’s onslaught was a sign that consumers are more willing than ever to wait for post-Christmas sales to get bargains, retail analysts say. A number of polls last year showed an increase in the number of consumers delaying their spending.

Valley malls were enjoying the post-Christmas buying spirit in the wake of what several local malls said were substantially higher holiday season sales in 1993.

At the Plaza at West Covina, which in October unveiled a $100-million expansion including 40 new shops and a Robinsons-May department store, sales at some stores far exceeded owners’ expectations, according to Tracey Gotsis, the mall’s marketing director.

She said some food merchants saw sales increase about 30%, as did some retailers.

Jeanie Van Amon, marketing director at Santa Anita Fashion Park in Arcadia, reported that sales increased about 7% at many of the mall’s shops. That mall will expand later this year with the opening of 20 new specialty shops. A Nordstrom department store is scheduled to open in August.

“We’ve had quite a bit of money spent in some of the local malls to update them--they’ve positioned them to compete. For quite a while people were driving right by San Gabriel Valley malls to places like the Glendale Galleria and South Coast Plaza,” said Richard Giss, a partner in the retail service group at the accounting firm of Deloitte & Touche in Los Angeles.

“With all the money poured into local malls and the growth in businesses in Old Town Pasadena, there are some real shopping alternatives in the San Gabriel Valley now,” he said. “The retailers are going after more upscale customers than they have in the past. I think it’s been pretty successful.”

And that, he said, helped spur the upturn in Valley sales this holiday season, Giss said.

In general, he said, reports from Valley retailers he deals with indicate sales surged 3% to 4% above last year’s holiday shopping season.

“If you look at stores individually, some did much better than that but some of the chains might have done worse,” he said. “Sears and J.C. Penney did better than they might have expected, while apparel shops didn’t do so well.”

*

Retailers who specialize in home furnishings, appliances and electronics have had strong sales this holiday season, analysts said. Most specialty apparel stores, such as The Limited, have had a difficult time, bringing in sales only by slashing prices.

Managers at the J.C. Penney department store in the Plaza at West Covina had to do more than just slash prices to fare well this holiday season. They feared the opening this fall of the mall’s fourth anchor, the Robinsons-May, might siphon off sales.

But Gayle Izuno, assistant manager of the West Covina J.C. Penney, said two years of remodeling and the addition of more name-brand products enabled the store to attract the more upscale clientele that Robinsons-May has drawn to the mall.

“The new wing has brought new shoppers and sales have been phenomenal,” Izuno said. She estimated a gain of 14% for December, compared with that month in 1992.