Sea of Shoppers Makes Retailers’ Spirits Bright

With cloudy skies putting a wintry touch on the day, shoppers jammed Southland stores Friday, snapping up bargains and reinforcing a growing belief that retailers will have a prosperous holiday season this year.

Tempted by “door buster” sales and novelty toys, crowds lined up early just about anywhere there was a sale--at department, discount and specialty stores--for the traditional start of the holiday shopping period.

From Los Angeles to Manhattan, mall watchers reported that shoppers were in high gear and retailers were bullish.

The Glendale Galleria parking lot Friday morning was the busiest it has been in six years, said Richard Giss, a retail expert at the Deloitte & Touche accounting firm, which monitors such things.

That’s because more retailers at the mall, including all of the anchor stores, opened at 7 a.m. this year. Such developments appear to support analysts’ predictions that sales will increase 3% to 7% this year.

“Last year it took until about 10 for the mall to get busy, but this year it was buzzing with people at 7:30,” said Galleria employee Nancy Allen, who was fielding calls and questions at a customer service desk overlooking two floors of shopping flurry and hubbub.

Sales of clothing, digital videodisc players and trendy toys helped fuel the excitement. Across the nation, the fuzzy Furby was kicking up a frenzy.

At the Westminster Mall, shoppers began lining up at 1 a.m. to buy the furry interactive critter at Kay-Bee Toys, which was selling it for $29.99.

James and Corteen Frantz, a brother-and-sister team, arrived at the Glendale Galleria at 5:30 a.m. and waited in line for four hours to buy two Furby dolls. The pair later took up positions on a bench amid a torrent of shoppers and tried to sell the talking gremlins for $300 each.

“I’m using whatever I make to buy gifts,” James Frantz said.

As in past years, the day started out busy, with bargain hunters packing stores early.

At the Westside Pavilion in Los Angeles, the turnout was 20% higher than on the same day a year ago, said Steve Hardy, the mall’s operations director. The mall opened at 8 a.m., and 65% of the 3,500 parking spaces were occupied by 11 a.m., he said.

At the Westminster Mall, the 5,900-space parking lot was full by 10 a.m., said Stephanie Green, marketing director. Last year, it didn’t fill up until noon.

But Friday’s pace seemed to cool somewhat in the afternoon. There were hundreds of parking places available at the Block, a new entertainment-shopping center in Orange, at about 1 p.m.

Department Stores See Rise in Stock Prices

At South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, a parking place could be found in three minutes around 4 p.m. Last year, it took 20 minutes to snag a spot at the same time.

Friday’s sales tally won’t be known until Sunday or Monday, when retail chains, mall groups and others begin reporting the totals. In anticipation of good news, four of the six big department store chains saw their stock rise in Friday trading, including Sears, Roebuck & Co. and Target’s and Mervyn’s parent, Dayton Hudson Corp., which both surged more than $1 a share.

Although the day after Thanksgiving is not the busiest shopping day of the year--the Saturday before Christmas is--it is something of a litmus test for the season.

Last year, sales during the Thanksgiving weekend accounted for about 9% of the revenue collected during the holiday shopping period, which stretches from the day after Thanksgiving to the end of December.

Holiday sales in general have become less crucial to merchants in recent years but still amount to a third of many retailers’ annual revenue. Economists say that with a rebounding stock market, the region’s robust economy, a low jobless rate and high consumer confidence, merchants are anticipating a lucrative holiday season.

Much of Friday’s shopping frenzy centered on the Southland’s toy stores, and as usual Kay-Bee was a popular spot because of its annual early-bird sale, which offered deep discounts on more than two dozen toys from 6 a.m. until noon.

At the chain’s Panorama Mall store, a line of customers snaked from the register down an aisle and out the front door.

To keep the line moving, salesclerk Rhonda Keermann yelled into a toy karaoke machine, telling customers to step up to a register as soon as one opened.

“People are so funny under pressure--holy Moses,” she said to another clerk, as customers jostled one another in line.

Kay-Bee touched off similar buying frenzies at stores in the Glendale Galleria, Media City Center in Burbank and Eagle Rock Plaza with six-hour sale prices that had Barbies retailing at $2.99 and a Toss & Tickle Me Elmo giveaway with each $100 in toy purchases.

At Play Co. in Mission Viejo, it was equally lively. Four hundred people rushed the store when it opened at 6 a.m., most of them seeking Beanie Babies, which at $4.99 were a buck off.

“It has been unbelievable,” salesman Alan Beniot said. “We have been absolutely swamped.”

By midmorning, the store was sold out of interactive Winnie the Pooh dolls and just-released Beanie Babies. Spice Girls dolls were almost gone too.

“Almost all of the advertised specials were gone,” Beniot said.

Indeed, bargain hunters were out in full force. Signs for sales and clearance specials dotted department stores and display windows at malls across the region. Inside Macy’s at Media City Center, 20 women huddled in a cluster and dug furiously through a display of leather purses marked down 50%.

Nancy Thornton and her daughter-in-law Mayda Thornton of Lake View Terrace began shopping at 5:30 a.m., looking for deals at several discount stores in the northeast San Fernando Valley.

By 10 a.m. they were trolling the aisles at La Curacao department store in the Panorama Mall, looking for Nintendo video games, Barbies and a drum set.

To avoid overspending, the women said, they were sticking to a strict shopping strategy: Buy what’s on the list, search for bargains and pay cash.

“Last year, I started Christmas shopping in September,” said Nancy Thornton, an engineering administrator at Pacific Bell. “There were no bargains then, so I spent more.”

By looking for deals this year, she said, she expects to put more gifts under the Christmas tree with fewer dollars.

Sylvia McCormick of Van Nuys, who was shopping at Northridge Fashion Center shortly after it opened at 7:30 a.m., seemed to be following a dollar-stretching strategy as well.

She scored two NFL shirts for her grandsons that were 45% off at JCPenney. To keep holiday spending down, she also said she planned to make embroidered handcrafts for her children and their spouses.

“I don’t feel that it is necessary to do more than that,” she said. “You can get a nice present without going overboard.”

Stores that gave shoppers freebies drew large crowds.

Fedco’s 10 Southland outlets offered their first 1,000 customers a “goody bag” filled with candy, gift wrap and small toys. One person would receive a bag with a certificate for a $1,000 shopping spree.

Employees were set to dole the sacks out when doors opened at 5:30 a.m.

Fila Portman and LaMont Nichols got to the Los Angeles store at 6 a.m., but the bags were all gone.

“We were certain we would get a goody bag, but we didn’t make the cut,” Portman said. “Can you imagine being too late at 6 a.m.?”

Many shoppers said that the region’s strong economy had improved their financial situations and that they would spend as much as last year, if not more.

At the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, Colleen Flowers was in an upbeat mood as she moved from shop to shop, bags in both hands.

“The economy is in good shape, so I’ll probably spend more,” she said. “This is the time to do it. Some people wait until December for bargains, but the selection isn’t as good late in the year. This is the time to get the best merchandise.”

Gloria Canuto of Van Nuys, who runs her own nail and hair salon, said she was feeling especially generous this year.

“Things have been a little better for us,” she said. Business has been steady for her husband, a mechanic, and the clamor for appointments at her salon has been so brisk that she recently had to hire a new stylist.

She and her four sisters hauled eight large shopping bags of toys, for the 21 children in their extended family, out of Kay-Bee’s Burbank store.

Jim Clover, who with his wife, Becki, opened a health care supply business in Riverside last year, said he will probably spend more than $1,000 on Christmas this year, more than last year, because the business is now more established.

“We are looking for sales and stuff,” he said.

He and his two daughters tore off so hurriedly for Bloomingdale’s at Fashion Island in Newport Beach that one girl forgot to put on socks. “We had to buy socks first,” he quipped.

Polly Martinez, a 21-year-old student who was shopping with her 3-year-old daughter, Olivia, said she was only looking for bargains.

“Everything I bought so far has been on sale,” she said.

Even so, when she completes her shopping, she probably will have bought more than last year. “I don’t even want to think about it,” she said.

Some places were actually calm, at least for part of the day.

At the Century City Shopping Center, there was plenty of parking and few shoppers at 9:30 a.m.

“It’s slow,” said Rick Wenrich, manager of the Gamekeeper, a store that sells board games and puzzles. “I expected more of a crowd this morning. Perhaps everyone is recovering from all of that Thanksgiving food.”

At Fashion Island the day started slowly, with few cars in the parking lot when Macy’s opened at 7 a.m., despite the store having advertised 50% off on some already-marked-down merchandise.

“It’s a perfect mall to go to for the door busters,” said one Macy’s employee who asked not to be identified. “Fashion Island’s not known for an early, early customer. . . . We should be pumping about 10 this morning.”

Times staff writers George White in Los Angeles, Karima A. Haynes in the San Fernando Valley and David Reyes and Richard Marosi in Orange County and special correspondent Stephen Gregory in Los Angeles contributed to this report.