Southland Malls See Brisk Traffic : Retailing: Shoppers surpass last year’s post-Thanksgiving turnout but lag behind national pace, which grew 3% to 4%. Increase is a sign of stronger holiday buying.
Enticed by deep discounts, prizes and other promotions, consumers flocked to Southern California shopping centers in greater numbers than expected Friday, a hopeful sign that the holiday shopping season could give an added boost to the recovering Southland economy.
Turnout at Southland malls on what is traditionally the busiest shopping day of the year exceeded last year’s hefty totals by 2% to 3%, said John Konarski, vice president of the International Council of Shopping Centers, which surveys most major malls nationwide.
Nationally, turnout rose by 3% to 4% over last year. But consumers in much of the nation appeared to be spending less than expected, analysts said.
On the other hand, Southland consumers were not as tight-fisted as many feared.
“It was a very solid turnout” in Southern California, said Richard Giss, a Los Angeles-based partner at the accounting firm of Deloitte & Touche. Despite concerns that the region’s increasingly debt-laden consumers might pare their holiday spending and impede the area’s recovery, “there was more buying than expected,” he said.
Giss expects overall retail sales to increase 3% to 4% in the Los Angeles region this holiday season--about in line with projections for nationwide sales.
However, most early bird shoppers flew past regularly priced items in favor of merchandise markdowns that will cut into retailers’ profit margins.
In a typical promotion, the JC Penney at the Northridge Fashion Center opened at 7 a.m. and offered customers an extra 10% off sales items until noon.
“That’s the kind of Christmas it is,” said store manager Howard Couch. “The days of regular-price purchases are gone. You just have to sell more.”
Nearly all the shoppers at the center said they were looking for deals. One little girl shopping with her family at the Northridge JC Penney pointed at a sign and shouted “Look! 30% off!”
“That’s why we’re here, to get the good prices,” said Tony Pinkowski of Northridge, who visited the mall with his wife, Linda, and their 3-year-old daughter, Natalie.
Some shoppers complained that even with retailers’ discounts, prices were still too high. Eileen Solomon of Northridge was shopping Friday for a present in the Northridge Victoria’s Secret, but said she buys most of her other gifts at swap meets or off-price stores. She was particularly pleased with $10 men’s wallets she found at T.J. Maxx.
“I look for name brands, but I’m not going to spend the money they want,” she said of the major department stores. “I already blew my budget, but at least I got good deals.”
Retailers are betting on the Christmas season--which generates about 25% of their annual sales--to help turn around what has been a dismal year. Retailers won’t have actual sales totals for Friday until Sunday.
While the Friday following Thanksgiving is still an important sales day, it is no longer as important a harbinger of overall holiday sales because consumers have been shopping later in the season in recent years. Many retailers tried to counter that trend by offering price-cutting promotions weeks before Thanksgiving.
Yet many consumers continue to show caution about spending because of economic uncertainties. Stretched budgets and heavy debts could make many shoppers buy more frugally. Many are looking twice before buying with credit cards because they’re already behind in their payments. The government this week reported that banks are seeing more consumer delinquencies in credit card and other installment loans.
Despite high levels of credit card debt, consumers are still expected to charge more than $120 billion between now and Christmas, says RAM Research, a firm that tracks credit card use.
Trying to spur some buying interest out of wary consumers, retailers have slashed prices oneverything from clothes to computers to sporting goods by as much as 50%.
Some of the biggest discounts locally could be found at the Broadway and Bullock’s, whose names will be disappearing from the Southern California retail scene after this holiday season.
Broadway was acquired earlier this year by Federated Department Stores--operator of the Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s and Bullock’s chains. Some Broadways will be closed, and the rest will be converted to Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s next year; Bullock’s stores will be converted to Macy’s.
At the Northridge Fashion Center, which reopened in August after extensive earthquake repairs, retailers anxiously awaited indications that this holiday season was getting off to a good start.
By mid-morning the main mall corridors were packed. Many shoppers at the mall said they were at last feeling as if their lives were returning to normal after nearly two years of coping with the aftermath of the January, 1994, earthquake.
Marjorie Binns of Simi Valley, who was shopping at the Northridge Fashion Center with her teen-age daughter, said that last Christmas was tight for her family because they had $50,000 worth of quake damage and no insurance. She’s planning to spend more on Christmas gifts this year, but she’s “still being careful” because her husband was laid off earlier this year and had to take a cut in pay at his new job.
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Others said they felt they had finally gotten past the hump of the recession and were now comfortable to splurge for Christmas.
In the rest of the nation, consumers appeared to be out in droves, but not free spending.
In Chicago, Marshall Field’s President Dan Skoda said the department store’s 2 million square feet were packed, but many people were shopping with their eyes.
That was true for shopper Sharon Sky in Denver, who said that she was cutting back compared to previous years because “it’s just tougher times. It seems as if my dollar doesn’t go as far.”
In Southern California, analysts say the fly in retailers’ Christmas pudding this year is the uncertainty in the job market because of bank mergers and other pending developments.
Last Christmas, Margaret Anthony couldn’t afford any gifts for her three daughters because she had to move from her earthquake-damaged Sherman Oaks home, and she hadn’t yet received a check from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“Last year we had no Christmas. I’m trying to make up for lost time,” she said, buying coats, sweaters, even a sapphire ring for a daughter. Nonetheless, Anthony said she’s remaining conservative this year and is only shopping for sales items.
“I still feel that the economy isn’t what it should be, and I wonder if it ever will be,” she said. “There are too many layoffs.”
Times staff writers Emi Endo in Los Angeles, Greg Miller, Karen D’Souza, Anna Cekola and community correspondent Dan Margolis in Orange County, and Times wire services contributed to this story.
* AN OPEN PLAYING FIELD: No big hit toy this season. D2
