Warm-Weather Shops Make Way for Holidays
‘Tis the season to be jolly, not wet, so Burbank pool store owner Bill Thuesen washed out his summer stock and replaced it with artificial Christmas trees, ornaments and other holiday decorations.
And he’s not the only Valley retailer to replace his regular merchandise with seasonal items. Pool stores, patio shops and nurseries are finding that providing Christmas merchandise from October through December is a good way to boost winter sales.
“Pool stores don’t make any money in wintertime,” said Thuesen, owner of Burbank Pool Supply. Bringing in Christmas items is “a blatant attempt to make money during the off-season. We probably do 25% of our annual gross this time of year, in a time when I’d otherwise be doing 5%.”
Switching to Christmas goods is a natural extension for businesses that rely on warm weather for sales, said Roger Gruen, regional sales manager for Kurt S. Adler Inc., probably the largest supplier of Christmas decorations in the country. “For most retailers, business gets better every year.”
Holiday decor sales have been steadily rising, other experts agreed. According to Unity Marketing, a Pennsylvania-based marketing and consulting firm, consumers spent about $1.94 billion on Christmas decorations such as tree trimmings and lighting in 1999 and another $1.3 billion on collectibles.
American Express, in its 2000 Retail Index on Holiday Shopping, reported that consumers spent an average of $64 on holiday decorations last year, and are expected to spend about $88 this season.
Green Thumb Nursery in Canoga Park, which has been in business for 54 years, has turned its patio shop into a Christmas store every holiday season for the last 30 years, said John Irwin, branch manager at the Canoga Park store, which is also the company headquarters.
“We got into the Christmas business because our nursery business slows down in November and December,” Irwin said. “We started selling cut trees and one thing led to another. Decorations seem to be a natural tie-in. It’s grown from there.”
Christmas sales have increased every year, he said, and have doubled in the last five years.
“In November and December, we will do as much as we do in six months in patio furniture,” he added. “It becomes highly concentrated.”
The six other Green Thumb nurseries (in Van Nuys, North Hills, Newhall, Ventura, San Marcos and Lake Forest) carry holiday items in varying amounts, depending on store size, Irwin said. The Canoga Park store, which includes a four-acre nursery across the street from the 7,500-square-foot patio store, is one of the largest. During the holiday season, the patio shop reserves 800 or 900 square feet for patio furniture and devotes the remainder of the store to seasonal goods.
“If we close out the patio section completely, we can’t react quickly enough restocking in January,” Irwin explained.
Thuesen, who has been selling holiday products for four winters, also keeps some pool supplies handy but moves his reduced stock to a 600-square-foot back room. The rest of the 1,800-square-foot store is devoted to wreaths, artificial trees, outdoor lights, light-up Santas and other Christmas decor.
Making way for seasonal changes is very labor-intensive, retailers agreed.
“It’s a ton of work,” said Pam Gietzen, co-owner with her husband, Lon, of Deforest’s Patio & Fireside Shop in Woodland Hills, which becomes Deforest’s Christmas & Fireside shop this time of year.
The store has been selling Christmas items in place of patio supplies for 20 years.
“It takes nine months to plan and set up [the Christmas Shop],” Pam Gietzen said. “It’s a very labor- and capital-intensive business. You have to be able to warehouse [the merchandise]. Once you’re in it, it’s hard to get out because of the carry-over.”
Patio merchandise is moved to a warehouse, but the 5,000-square-foot shop maintains a full supply of fireplace goods, since fireplace equipment is an obvious fit with winter sales. September sales deplete summer stock. Then it takes two to three weeks to move out the summer items and unpack, price and display the seasonal goods.
Most merchants include a few Hanukkah items, such as menorahs, dreidels and ceramic ware, but demand for these is small, perhaps because those celebrating Hanukkah don’t think of looking in a Christmas store, sellers said.
Full-time employees often work extra hours and are aided by part-time seasonal hires as customer traffic and operating hours increase. The Canoga Park Green Thumb usually has seven full-time employees in the patio shop, but during the heaviest part of the Christmas selling season, the staff is up to 20 full- and part-time workers, with some employees transferring from the nursery, Irwin said.
“We do hire additional employees, but we like to give more hours to the people who already work here,” he said. Seasonal workers, he noted, are usually found through recommendations of regular employees.
Deforest’s uses about 15 full- and part-time workers at Christmas, about the same number they take on during the busiest summer months.
Buyers at these shops begin their work in January or February, checking out catalogs and attending gift shows, especially those in Los Angeles, Atlanta and Dallas.
At Green Thumb, each store has its own holiday buyer.
“Buyer input at the local level is very important to us,” because they purchase according to what sells in their own area, Irwin said.
“Each store has its own individual flavor. Most buyers have been with us for at least six or seven years and they’ve built up their own type of business and contacts.” However, he noted, “Some things we agree on, such as what light sets or trees we will advertise.”
Buying is often the trickiest part of the business, everyone agreed. Buyers need to anticipate what customers will want, and in what quantities.
“You have to be very careful when buying product,” Thuesen said. “Everything you don’t sell is tied-up inventory. Who wants to carry $50,000 worth of inventory? The ultimate challenge is to buy the right stuff and turn a profit.”
The first year that Thuesen sold Christmas decor, “it was not a moneymaker. We ordered too much and had a lot of leftovers. But we made money the second year.
“We also learned not to carry the same products as the mass merchants,” he added. “They’d kill me on the price.”
“Over the years we’ve become pretty good at buying just what we need,” Irwin said. “But sometimes we guess wrong. Four years ago, we sold a large quantity of C-9 standard outdoor light sets. When icicle lights became popular, they displaced sales of those standard lights, some of which had been purchased two years in advance.”
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Catering to a more upscale clientele seems to be the secret for these specialty retailers. Thuesen, for instance, said his $100,000 worth of inventory this year includes a lot of lawn and roof ornaments, especially $300 to $1,000 light-up decorations that feature moving parts, like a waving Santa. These are items that wouldn’t be found at mass merchandisers, he noted.
“To some degree, we try to set the pace,” he said. “We show the customers what’s hot in decorating. People are always looking for something new.”
Specialty merchants “are most successful offering products that are unique,” agreed Gruen, whose company holds most of the major character licenses for Christmas, including Harry Potter, Snoopy, Sesame Street and Looney Tunes. “The meat of the business is in ornaments and decorative lighting.”
