Rain Fails to Deter Last-Minute Shoppers
Driving rain, packed stores and traffic tie-ups didn’t keep Southland residents from a last-minute round of gift-buying Sunday, as retailers reported continued strong sales on the final weekend before Christmas, keeping alive hopes of a healthy 4% to 6% boost at the cash register over last year.
Despite morning showers that dumped one-third of an inch of rain in Los Angeles before the skies opened to sunlight, store owners and retail analysts said shopper traffic recovered Sunday afternoon to top a strong final weekend of holiday buying.
“It isn’t really sunny--but we have just been packed. We have very high traffic. It’s the last weekend before Christmas and merchants say sales are going real well, that consumers’ moods are real high,” said Deborah Blackford, spokeswoman for the 258-store Glendale Galleria regional mall.
Dennis McGovern, assistant manager of the newly opened Ontario Mills mall, said Sunday afternoon that all his 185-store center’s shopping carts were rented out and, judging from his walk-through, seemed filled with packages. “That’s what we look for: Are they carrying packages. So it looks like a great Sunday and a great season,” he said.
If they were typical, many of those packages contained this year’s hottest selling gifts: jewelry, apparel, video games such as Nintendo 64 and toys such as Tickle Me Elmo and others licensed from the several hot movies of the season, including “Space Jam,” “101 Dalmatians” and “Toy Story.”
Bad weather often works to boost mall sales because it limits shoppers’ other weekend recreation options, said John Konarski, vice president of International Council of Shopping Centers, a 32,000-member trade group based in New York City.
“Short of major flooding, I wouldn’t expect rain to stop people from shopping,” Konarski said. “In fact, a little bit of rain is good,” he said, adding that except for some snow in the Great Lakes area and rain in Southern California, the national weather picture was favorable for retailers Sunday.
On the other hand, free-standing uncovered stores and malls “without ample parking” are often hurt by bad weather, said Richard Giss, partner in the retail services group of Deloitte & Touche of Los Angeles. “It’s every retailers’ worst nightmare. But the storm passed through quickly and so most people lost only a morning’s worth of shopping,” he said.
Even smaller retailers in the region’s open malls reported heavy shopping traffic after the Sunday morning showers.
“People are going to come out regardless of the weather to do their Christmas shopping, just like the mailman,” said Beverly Dilday, manager of Russo’s Wonderful World of Pets in the Fashion Island mall in Newport Beach, who added that sales were brisk. Her hottest sellers? “Puppies, all kinds,” Dilday said.
But the rain kept shopper traffic light in center city shopping districts such as Pasadena’s high-end Lake Street and mid-scale Old Town Pasadena on Sunday morning. Crowds grew by Sunday afternoon, Giss and others said.
Youth-oriented retail chains such as Rampage, Gap and Friends reported strong sales.
“Apparel is the bright spot in this shopping season. It had been weak for three years. The ‘grunge’ look is finally dying--may it rest in peace--and kids are returning to labels and fashionable clothes,” Giss said.
Disappointments this year at the cash register include computers, cellular telephones, pagers, big-screen TVs, all categories that for the last several years have been strong but that “hit a saturation point. . . . There has not been a new product that has been a ‘must have’ product,” Giss said.
This was a crucial weekend because a third of all holiday purchases are made during the final week of shopping, Konarski said. The percentage is even higher for small specialty stores, such as those that sell high-ticket item such as jewelry and luggage.
