Holidays Off to a Ringing Start at the Cash Registers
Expanded store hours and early-bird discounts helped fuel double-digit sales increases at malls from Ventura to Thousand Oaks over the Thanksgiving weekend -- the traditional start of the holiday shopping season.
“All the department stores we talked to said they had fabulous weekends,” said Alice Love, marketing manager of Pacific View Mall in Ventura. She said the anchor stores -- JC Penney, Macy’s, Robinsons-May and Sears -- had sales increases “in the high single digits to the double digits,” and that the Penney store enjoyed the highest one-day sales total in its history Friday.
For the first time, all four of the department stores opened at 6 a.m. Friday to lure dedicated shoppers. Most gift items were popular, according to Love, with apparel making a comeback from previous lackluster years.
Across the county at The Oaks in Thousand Oaks, department stores mirrored the national trend and recorded double-digit sales gains compared with last year’s post-Thanksgiving weekend, according to marketing manager Cristina Bremner.
“It was much better than expected,” Bremner said of the mall, which has more than 130 retailers. “Friday was excellent, Saturday was soft -- I think because it was a dark and rainy day -- but we bounced back Sunday for another excellent day to finish out the weekend.”
The heavy turnout was attributed in part to consumer confidence and to fewer shopping days than usual between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
The action was nonstop at the KB Toys store at The Oaks, where all four cash registers were busy throughout the weekend, said Lisa Fay, senior assistant manager. Nearly 100 people were lined up by the time the store opened at 5 a.m. Friday.
“The day after Thanksgiving was just outstanding for us, and it’s still flowing,” said Fay, whose store sales were up as much as 80% Friday and about 60% throughout the weekend. Any item based on the “Spider-Man” movie and comic books has been a big seller, she said, as have Rapunzel Barbie and accessories, remote-control toys and this season’s hot FurReal Friends, battery-operated animals that resemble actual felines.
Early store hours also attracted thousands of shoppers to Camarillo Premium Outlets’ 120 stores before dawn Friday. Designer stores including Tommy Hilfiger, Polo Ralph Lauren and Coach attracted lines before they opened, said Maura Eggan, director of marketing for Chelsea Property Group, the New Jersey-based developer of the outlet center.
“There were people who had been waiting since the wee small hours of the morning, and they were at the cash registers within five minutes” after opening time, Eggan said. “They were well-organized, focused shoppers who knew exactly what they wanted and had obviously done their homework.”
Because brand names are even more popular during the holidays, the outlet mall -- with tenants including Ann Taylor, Hugo Boss, Barneys New York, Donna Karan, Nike and Adidas -- does very well, Eggan said. Among the better-selling gifts, she said, were accessories such as scarves and costume jewelry.
Eggan said visitors from Los Angeles and Santa Barbara counties contributed to heavy traffic all three days, but coordination with the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department helped keep snarls and backups to a minimum.
Records couldn’t help but be broken at Oxnard’s Esplanade shopping center, which was undergoing a rebuilding last year and had only half its stores open by late November.
General Manager Sandy Dellibovi said sales have been picking up since October and that the number of shoppers was “strong and steady” all weekend, especially at the new Circuit City store, which had its grand opening Nov. 21 after moving from Pacific View Mall.
Although the crowds were constant at Pacific View Mall, the Salvation Army was not seeing any donation records broken. Capt. Keith Solts said that the organization, which has four bell-ringers and a gift-wrapping booth at the mall, found that giving was slow Friday but picked up Saturday.
Regional economist Mark Schniepp said most local consumers are employed and confident about their personal finances. He predicts another record fourth quarter this year, with overall taxable sales adding 4% to the $2.6 billion tallied in the last three months of 2001.
