Looks as if Retailers Won’t Get Their Wish : Sales: Last-minute spending is light. Analysts estimate that the season’s take will be just 1% to 3% over last year’s.

Last-minute shoppers squeezed into malls and neighborhood stores on Sunday, but sales remained too light to rescue most retailers from a lackluster holiday season.

Both nationally and in Southern California, analysts estimated that stores over the full holiday season would show slim sales gains, in the range of 1% to 3%, from a year earlier.

Among the disappointed retail companies was Dayton Hudson Corp., the parent of chains such as Target Stores and Mervyn’s.

Although the past week’s results exceeded expectations, they were “not enough to make up for slower sales in the first part of the holiday season,” company spokeswoman Gail Dorn said. The company, whose Target chain is the biggest nonfood retailer in California, said sales of electronic goods and jewelry were particularly weak.

After surveying several Southland malls, retail analyst Richard E. Giss of the Deloitte & Touche accounting firm proclaimed that “there are crowds out there, but they aren’t gargantuan, as retailers had hoped for.”

Giss noted that some retailers this weekend already appeared to be slashing price tags to what would normally be post-Christmas levels.

On the other hand, the revitalized Sears, Roebuck & Co. reported that its Southwest region--which is dominated by California--showed the strongest gain among its six U.S. divisions.

Moreover, last week was the best sales week nationally in the history of the company, the nation’s No. 3 retailer. Even so, the company said its sales gains for the full holiday shopping season, although ahead of much of the industry, would fall below the 8% increase posted for 1994.

In downtown Los Angeles, the Broadway shopping district was bustling Sunday at noon, with Santa Claus making balloon sculptures, sidewalk artists hawking sketches and Spanish-language music blaring from rival electronics stores on both sides of the street.

But at Hannah’s Gift Shop, few customers were standing in the small aisle between a table laden with inexpensive toys and walls hung thick with purses, backpacks and suitcases.

“This year is very bad. I think because the majority of my customers are low-income people, minorities, I think they just don’t have enough money,” sighed owner Sang Park as his daughter, 3-year-old Hannah, snoozed in the back room. “In America, there’s a problem. The big companies are growing bigger, and the small businesses are worse.”

At the Northridge Fashion Center, which reopened in July after remodeling necessitated by the January, 1994, earthquake, few shoppers were toting more than a single package.

Inside George Allen Shoes, which was largely empty, manager Constance Marchetti attributed the absence of customers to impulse buying at less expensive shops.

“The people who buy $10 watches that’ll break in a week won’t come into our store,” she said.

The mood was far more upbeat among retailers at Westminster Mall in Orange County, where many store managers said sales had rebounded strongly this holiday season from a disappointing 1994.

At Going to the Game, which sells sports jerseys and related garb, salesman Anthony Aleman said results are up at least 30% from a year ago and that shoppers are more ready to buy big-ticket items.

“Before, $16 for a shirt was too much,” Aleman said. “Now they’re getting it all, whatever they can get their hands on.”

But at Brea Mall in Orange County, business wasn’t as bustling as in previous Christmases. There were parking spaces near Nordstrom, and salespeople attributed the slower pace of shopping partly to Christmas Eve’s falling on a Sunday. Some noted that the late shopping rush of previous years had not materialized.

Contributing to this report were Times staff writers Jodi Wilgoren in Los Angeles, David E. Brady in the San Fernando Valley and Greg Johnson in Orange County.