Holiday Shoppers Hit the Stores, Give O.C. Merchants Hope
Crowds in Orange County jostled into stores Friday, offering hope to retailers who slashed prices and staged elaborate promotions in the face of widespread expectations of slower holiday sales.
Even before the sun rose on the official start of the holiday shopping season, people by the hundreds lined up outside stores. Many were eager to spend, fighting traffic and rival shoppers to do so.
“People were vicious,” said 36-year-old Bret Kannar, who was shopping in the early morning hours at discount stores in Anaheim Plaza. “If you let go of your cart, someone would snatch what was in it. . . . People were running down the aisles. It was every man for himself.”
The commotion was pleasing to retailers, whose expectations have been lowered by political and economic uncertainties. “I thought with the election and the stock market going up and down, people would be afraid and hold on to their money,” said Maria Sims, owner of Country Crafts, an art and craft retailer in Buena Park. “But so far, it looks good.”
Nonetheless, retailers in the county and throughout much of the nation face multiple difficulties, not the least of which is having to follow 1999’s record-setting holiday sales. This year, economists and financial analysts have warned that higher interest rates, increased energy costs and a cyclical slowdown in consumer spending also are likely to contribute to at best a modest gain in retail sales.
“It looks like they’ve got a pretty good crowd down here,” Costa Mesa retail consultant Tony Cherbak reported Friday after observing the retail activity at Fashion Island in Newport Beach. “But it doesn’t look like a blowout by any means.”
Analysts say retailers are facing wide consumer indifference, with no “must-have” product to drive customers into stores the way Pokemon products and Millennium memorabilia did in 1999. The only truly “hot” toy, PlayStation2, is mostly unavailable, since parts shortages forced manufacturer Sony to cut production in half.
At the same time, the few popular products are ubiquitous, with discounters and small retailers challenging specialty stores by offering scooters, electronic dogs and leather apparel in every price range.
“This Thanksgiving weekend will be an even lower percentage of total sales than last year,” said John Konarski of the International Council of Shopping Centers. “The trend over the last three years has been for the holiday weekend to account for a bit less each time.”
Long since passed over as the biggest shopping day of the year--last year, one trade group pegged the day after Thanksgiving as the eighth largest sales day--the days just after the holiday continue to matter as an early barometer of the public’s economic mood. And above all, shoppers Friday were mostly in the mood for a bargain.
Sue Dexter-Brown and her husband worked in shifts Friday morning. Jim Brown was up at 4 a.m. so he could make it to Kay-Bee Toy by 5 a.m. and be back at their Yorba Linda home an hour later.
“He got all of our son’s Christmas toys for 50 bucks,” Sue Dexter-Brown said proudly.
Then she sprang into action, getting to Macy’s at South Coast Plaza by 6:45 a.m., to have coffee with “the Este Lauder girls,” who were dispensing both caffeine and coupons. After grabbing an impulse buy--a $40 purse slashed to $14--Dexter-Brown, 38, grabbed marked-down jewelry for her baby sitters--eight pairs of earrings for $28. And then it was off to Macy’s Home for a $100 Cuisinart on sale for $79 and a couple of ornaments.
Stores made it easy for consumers in search of specials.
Department stores at Fashion Island offered discounts of 10% to 60%, said Cherbak, who is with Deloitte & Touche.
The Sears, Roebuck & Co. store in Cerritos Mall drew hundreds of largely male shoppers to its annual half-off hardware sale. Customers purchasing more than 25 sets were directed to a special register. Last year, bargain hunters swarmed the hardware aisle, blocking the store’s escalators as they snapped up 3,500 half-price tool sets.
“So this year we told the district we wanted 5,000 sets,” said store manager Jay Wilson, who spent the morning handing out hundreds of advertising inserts. “They put their trust in us, got us the merchandise, and we know we’ll easily do more than 5,000 units.”
Target Corp. hopes to extend the day-after Thanksgiving Day bargain search by withholding freebies--a limited edition Matchbox car and a Barbie-themed camera--until this morning. “Everyone’s always fighting for Friday’s guests, so we’re doing something a little bit different,” said Tim Kindig, manager of the Target Greatland store in Costa Mesa that opened in October.
Overall, analysts and merchants say Orange County and California in general are likely to fare better than many other areas of the nation because of the state’s stronger economic growth. Employment, housing and personal incomes in the state have all been outperforming the nation.
“I was apprehensive about today, but turns out it was unfounded because it’s going to be spectacular,” said Jeremiah J. Sullivan, Macy’s West chairman and chief executive in San Francisco. “October was a very good month for us, and the first part of November was good as well. Then, after the election, we saw a softening right up through Wednesday.”
South Coast Plaza, which now has about 280 stores and restaurants, had about 212,000 shoppers just on Friday, slightly more than last year on the day after Thanksgiving, said Debra Gunn Downing, executive director of marketing. To gear up for the kickoff of the shopping season, the mall added a fifth concierge desk and a fifth valet station as well as about 100 valet parkers, 40 concierge workers and 35 housekeepers.
“We’ve really, really prepared for a very strong season with 40 new stores, our new bridge,” she said. “We feel good about the holidays.”
Still, Cherbak predicted holiday sales will increase at most 2% compared with last year. He added that would still make it a “pretty good year,” since 1999’s sales were so robust.
And throughout Orange County on Friday, the volatile stock market, the elections and other concerns were on the lips of shoppers and merchants.
“I was definitely more conservative this year,” said Katherine Lemon, 28, a financial consultant who was sitting on a bench in the shopping district in Laguna Beach. “The stock market isn’t as good as last year, and nobody knows what’s around the corner.”
Analysts say the stock market declines in recent months could have an especially measurable effect on retailers of luxury goods, which in recent years have seen outstanding sales.
Until recently, sales at the crystal boutique Lalique in South Coast Plaza had been up more than 45% compared with last year, said director Nikki Malek. But the presidential election saga has become a bit of a burden; she’s noticed her customers have been grumbling about it.
“Since the whole deal with election and [stock] market, it has slowed down a little bit,” Malek said.
But so far, holiday sales have looked good at Lalique. By Friday, the store had already sold one Christmas shopper a $76,000 Chene table base (a carved crystal, weighing more than 1,400 pounds), and it had almost two dozen people on a waiting list for its Les Sirenes perfume, a $900 item that comes in a handmade French crystal bottle, director Nikki Malek said. Lalique has also sold two of its Imperial Vases--at $24,000 each--to holiday shoppers, she said.
Roia Jabari, owner of Roya’s, a candle, rug and handcraft shop in Laguna Beach, said she believed consumers were being more conservative as well. She said her sales so far this year have been roughly 15% lower than last year. But she wasn’t giving up on the holiday season.
“I’m keeping my fingers crossed,” she said.
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Times staff writers Abigail Goldman, Monte Morin and Times correspondents Louise Roug and Sean Kirwan also contributed to this report.
* CONSUMER COMMANDOS
Holiday shopping like a martial art for some. C1
