Shoppers Swarm After Bargains : Business: The ample size of crowds in O.C. outpaces spending on traditional first day of holiday retail season. Sales totals appear to be up slightly as bargain hunters, discounts hold sway.

Lilliam Lee started her holiday shopping before sunrise Friday, driving to Irvine to get a coveted admission ticket to this weekend’s annual St. John Knits half-price sale.

Lee then hurried to Newport Beach’s Fashion Island to queue up with hundreds of other bargain seekers waiting for I. Magnin’s 9 a.m. liquidation sale. At 9:30, as others were still in line out front, Lee was heading home to Huntington Beach with a pair of casual suits in hand. “They were marked down, with the 20% off, to about $140,” Lee said. “You can’t do better than that.”

Lured by discounts, prizes and other promotions, consumers marched on the nation’s shopping malls in large numbers Friday for the start of the holiday shopping season.

Across Orange County, retailers sounded an optimistic note.

“It’s been busier this morning than ever before,” said Angel Holt, manager of the Clothes Minded store in Laguna Beach. “A lot of people are shopping for themselves. A lot of button-down tops and sweaters are going like mad.

“People in general are feeling real good about the prospects for ’95.”

Said Tony Cherbak, a retail industry analyst in Costa Mesa for national accounting firm Deloitte & Touche: “Today is pretty much up to expectations.”

There were similar reports from across the nation. Traffic in downtown Chicago was heavy, parking lots were full, and the shoppers wall-to-wall at Marshall Fields, but they described themselves as bargain-oriented.

Holiday retail sales are expected to be especially strong in the East, and the season appears to be off to a rousing start in some regions.

In Miami, crowds were widespread at the Aventura Mall, one of the area’s largest shopping centers.

“So far today, it’s busier than expected,” said Jennifer Toro, a sales assistant at the mall’s Macy’s store. “People were waiting outside at 7:30 a.m. when I came in to work. Sales this year are much better than last year.”

The turnout was also impressive at the flagship Macy’s store on 34th Street in Manhattan. “I can tell you that it’s been packed all day since the store opened at eight,” said Macy spokeswoman Patti Schrickram. “There were people waiting at the doors, throngs of shoppers.”

The purchasing trend in New York, however, was similar to that elsewhere. Although the crowds were large, many weren’t buying. The lines to see Macy’s famed Santa, Santaland and the Puppet Theatre were sometimes longer than many of the cash register lines combined.

While turnouts were heavy nationwide, actual sales appeared to be up only slightly over last year’s--and much of that business was generated by bargain-hunters. Indeed, there was a shopping frenzy in Newport Beach at I. Magnin’s Fashion Island store, where Pinkerton guards stood watch over long lines of both devotees and first-time shoppers.

“The day after Thanksgiving isn’t my idea of a good time,” said Carole Neustadt, an Aliso Viejo resident and a longtime I. Magnin shopper. “I’m only here because they’re closing and having a sale.”

Many shoppers said they plan to spend more money this holiday season than last, confirming recent surveys that found rising consumer confidence. Others, however, said they will make their purchases later in the season to take advantage of any additional discounting. Shoppers also said they will keep the fragile economy in mind as they reach for their purses and wallets.

Anaheim residents Edmundo and Leticia Medina shopped at Mervyn’s in the newly renovated Anaheim Plaza for clothing and toys for friends and relatives. But they also bought warm clothes for themselves for an upcoming holiday visit to the mountains.

The Medinas said they paid for both the shopping spree and their upcoming vacation with savings amassed earlier in the year when he feared losing his job. But the likelihood of a layoff dissipated in recent months, so the Medinas are springing for snow gear and heading for the hills.

Another shopper, Alicia Lopez, said she is unemployed at the moment but has enough confidence in the economy that she’s willing to spend money on Christmas presents for her 12 grandchildren. Lopez, a 59-year-old Anaheim resident, saved for the holidays earlier in the year while working in a warehouse.

“I don’t think I will have a problem getting a new job after New Year’s,” Lopez said. “So it’s OK to spend some of my savings now. . . . I don’t have much of the green stuff, but they are all going to get some clothes because that is what they need.”

Some were willing to spend more heavily if the price was right. Darlene Mims of Los Angeles shopped for a dollhouse for her daughter and found the best price at Toys R Us in Culver City. She ended up buying three--sets representing Latinos, Anglos and African Americans.

Discounts were definitely on shoppers’ minds.

At a Target store in North Hollywood, for example, about 800 people lined up before the store opened to take advantage of sales and a promotion--a free “Holiday Survival Package” that included coupons, shampoo, lotion, snacks and antacids. The package was offered to the first 1,000 customers at each Target store nationwide.

And at the Orange County Marketplace in Costa Mesa, the parking lot began to fill shortly after 7 a.m.

“You look down the aisles, and it’s pretty packed,” said Operations Manager Ed Beddoes as he surveyed the early morning traffic jam. “People are out here looking for the bargains. There’s some stuff you just can’t get in the malls.”

Cerritos resident Judy Giles, 46, an administrative assistant for a Long Beach-based company, was at the Marketplace to shop for her daughter, Stephanie. “I paid $75 for a pair of Ugg boots here,” Giles said. The after-ski fur-lined footwear, she said, cost $125 at department stores.

Marketplace shopper Peggy Alcantar, 50, of Laguna Hills said she’s prepared to spend “a couple of thousand” on Christmas presents--but only if the price is right.

“Last year was bad,” Alcantar said. “But the economy seems to be bubbling a little more this year.”

Garden Grove resident Eloise Hicks, 56, said she is buying clothing and a few toys for her three grandchildren, despite the fact that she has taken a buyout offer and will leave Northrop Corp. on Dec. 22. “They gave me a golden handshake, and it was too good to resist,” Hicks said. “Next year is going to be a lot less good to the grandchildren unless I find something again right away in aerospace.”

The lure of bargains was especially evident at I. Magnin, the 118-year-old department store chain that began a liquidation sale on Friday.

Some shoppers were eager to get a good deal, even if they didn’t know what was for sale. One first-time shopper asked passers-by if I. Magnin carries menswear. “My boyfriend will kill me ,” the woman said, “if we wait in this line and they don’t have men’s clothing.”

At the I. Magnin in Newport Beach, hundreds of people gathered early in the mistaken belief that the sale would begin at 8 a.m. Tempers flared when store personnel said that doors would remain locked until 9 a.m.

But most of the bargain hunters stayed anyway, and a lengthy line snaked through the outdoor shopping center all day as shoppers waited their turn.

I. Magnin wasn’t alone in using advertised sales to draw business. Shop windows across the region heralded promises of 25%, 30% and 50% off.

“Retailers are doing what they have to do to get people using their plastic and spending their cash,” analyst Cherbak said. “You see a lot of promotional items, free gifts with purchase and lots of sales.”

Deloitte & Touche surveyed about 175 shoppers at a dozen Southland malls on Friday to identify buying trends. The accounting firm said it found that department stores offering more expensive clothing had difficulty drawing buyers. After years of weak clothing sales in Southern California, however, survey respondents on Friday expressed a strong interest in apparel--a sign, analysts said, that shoppers want good garments but at low prices.

“I’m buying clothing for my kids,” said Deena Goucher, a Moreno Valley resident who shopped at Anaheim Plaza on Friday. “It’s going to be a small Christmas, and the gifts will be practical, like clothes.”

Holiday shoppers also were out in force at Knott’s Berry Farm. The day after Thanksgiving is the only time that the Buena Park attraction sells more retail admissions than theme park tickets.

Covina residents Cindy Martin and Sherri Jackson took their daughters--but left husbands and sons at home--when they headed off to search for knickknacks at the park’s dozens of retail shops. “You can tell we’re hard-core shoppers,” Jackson said.

Both Martin and Jackson said they aren’t spending too freely, though, because friends and family members are either out of work or facing the possibility of layoffs.

“My husband works at Long Beach Naval Shipyard, and it’s supposed to go back on the base closure list again in 1995,” Jackson said. “We’re going to have that threat hanging over us again.”

Times staff writer Nancy Hsu and Times correspondents Hope Hamashige and Tom Ragan contributed to this report.

Shopping Advice: For a collection of shopping tips, read Geri Cook’s columns on TimesLink. Use jump word: Geri Cook.

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