$eeing Green : O.C. Retailers Count on Weekend, Last-Minute Shoppers
With less than a week before Christmas, Joan Fitzsimmons of Costa Mesa has finished her holiday shopping. Well, maybe.
“You know, I’ve gotten the big gifts for my husband and my kids. The ones I have to get,” said Fitzsimmons, 43, a computer technician with three children. “If I can handle the crowds and have the time, there may be a few more things I can pick up before Christmas.”
Analysts say the Joan Fitzsimmonses of the nation may well determine whether this holiday season brings yuletide joy or another disappointing silent night to America’s retailers. Although merchants are predicting a record-breaking weekend of sales, analysts are uncertain whether it will be enough to meet rosy projections of a 4% to 6% increase over last year’s dismal holiday sales.
“This weekend is super-critical for the retailers,” said William Ford of TeleCheck Services, the world’s largest check acceptance company. “The jobs, the money, the attitude are there to boost sales. It’s going to depend upon whether consumers want to spend a little more or a little less on the same person than they did last year.”
To encourage undecided shoppers to get into the spirit of buying, merchants are offering discounts, staging promotional activities and extending shopping hours. The pressure to draw holiday shoppers has been intensified all the more by the calendar. Because Thanksgiving fell late, merchants were shortchanged five shopping days, including a crucial weekend, compared to last year.
In addition to offering live holiday music and photos with Santa, many malls are hoping to attract even more last-minute customers by rewarding big spending. For instance, Los Cerritos Center in Cerritos is giving shoppers a $25 gift certificate to Kay-Bee Toys if they spend $250 in one day at the mall. (Anchor department stores are not part of the promotion.)
“This is our final push, where we have to make up for those five lost days,” said the center’s marketing director, Angela Abshier.
Like most retailers, South Coast Plaza has expanded its hours of operation by as much as 20% to accommodate shoppers’ busy schedules. The mall will be open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. today and Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday. Mall stores normally are open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturdays and from 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Sundays.
Also, most stores are advertising substantial discounts to boost sales in the final stretch. Many stores are offering discounts of 30% to 40% on fall coats for women, sports coats for men and children’s sleepwear, to name a few items.
But some analysts question whether such specials are part of a shrewd marketing strategy devised months ago or are simply a panicky reaction to lethargic sales. Stores sometimes merely mark down overpriced goods and try to pass them off as legitimate sales, warned Britt Beemer, president of America’s Research Group, a retail research firm based in Charleston, S.C.
So far, indicators show that holiday spending is outpacing last year’s disappointing 2.5% increase. In the first 17 days of holiday shopping this year, retail stores gained 5% in sales nationwide, according to TeleCheck Services. California retailers posted increases of 3.9% over the same period, while spending in the Los Angeles area rose just 3.2%, according to TeleCheck. Checks account for more than a third of retail spending.
Companies that track credit card purchases are forecasting a similar trend. “It looks like it should be an OK Christmas, but still not a gangbuster one by any means,” said Robert McKinley, president of RAM Research Group of Frederick, Md.
If retailers are to avoid a repeat of 1995’s lackluster sales, some analysts say, shoppers who are unsure whether they have bought enough gifts must return to the stores before Christmas. About 27% of the nation’s shoppers fall into this undecided category a week before Christmas, according to Beemer of America’s Research Group.
“The real question is what’s this bunch going to do,” Beemer said. “Are they planning to give their spouse four or five presents this year, or will they be satisfied with the three or four they’ve already bought? I tend to think they’ll be satisfied with what they’ve got.”
Beemer said a combination of midweek vacation traveling, an absence of real bargains and a drop-off in people buying themselves expensive holiday gifts will keep some would-be shoppers away from stores.
But even if the undecideds don’t show in big numbers, last-minute holiday shoppers are still expected to hit stores and malls in droves this weekend, say industry analysts. The last week before Christmas usually accounts for a third of the total holiday business, they say.
“We are expecting the stores to be absolutely jampacked Saturday,” said John Konarski, vice president of the International Council of Shopping Centers. “If you don’t like crowds, you’re going to have a big problem.”
June Tigonoff of Irvine said she knows that overcrowded holiday feeling. She plans to jump into the Christmas shopping fray this weekend in search of gifts for her mother, her husband and their two children.
“I do this every year, fighting the last-minute shoppers like me,” said the 34-year-old administrative assistant. “I really hate it, but I always end up doing it.”
Though not of great concern in Southern California, a potential wild card in determining final holiday sales throughout much of the country will be the weather. It could easily ruin what still could be a very good Christmas season, say retailers.
“We are on target for a 4% to 6% increase,” said the shopping center council’s Konarski. “But our biggest worry is heavy snow, freezing rain or an extreme cold spell. That would be a disaster.”
Also contributing to this report was Times staff writer Greg Johnson.
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The Holiday Rush
Peak holiday shopping days vary each year, but the busiest days are usually:
* The Friday after Thanksgiving
* The final two weekends before Christmas
* Dec. 23
* Dec. 24
Source: Times reports
