At the Heart of the Action on a Big Day for Retailers

With the days till Christmas dwindling, Dan Gutierrez is a man on a mission.

As manager of the Sears, Roebuck & Co. store at Del Amo Fashion Center, he works 14-hour days “directing the troops,” trying to keep shelves stocked and tending to customers. Six days a week, the father of four youngsters drives to the Torrance store from his home in Santa Clarita, about 100 miles round-trip.

The stress takes its toll.

Since the holiday shopping season officially began the day after Thanksgiving, Gutierrez has battled pinkeye and a virus that stole his voice. He has shored up the staff as the flu spread from worker to worker and attended the funeral of an appliance salesman who died of a heart attack.

Meanwhile, he has soothed upset customers when his supply of American Idol Karaoke machines sold out. And now he’s wondering when his temporary workers will start disappearing.

“Once seasonal people have gone as far as they want to go and they’ve got their extra Christmas money, then they quit,” he says.

So does the season get him down? Hardly.

“I love this job,” he says.

Gutierrez is one of thousands of store managers across the nation who were in high gear Saturday. It is generally the busiest day of the shopping season, a day that motivates many a procrastinator as stores open early and haul out new promotions. Sometimes, chains whack 50% -- or even more -- off the price of already marked-down merchandise.

It’s the home stretch for retailers, which generate an average of 23% of their sales in November and December. Last year, they rang up 41% of their seasonal sales in the nine days before Christmas, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers. The Monday before Christmas was the second-busiest day.

Just how the retailing sector fared over the weekend won’t be known until Tuesday, when an industry report on comparable-store sales is released. Analysts said Sunday that they were unsure what, if any, effect the government’s heightened terrorism alert would have on business.

At 5:50 Saturday morning, the Sears store in Torrance stands mostly empty. It almost seems to be slumbering. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” drifts from store speakers.

“It’s the calm before the storm,” says Gutierrez, barreling down the aisle, clipboard in hand, walkie-talkie clipped to his waistband. At 6 feet 4 and 275 pounds, the 40-year-old Gutierrez knows how to wake up a room.

“I’ve got to see if my 6 o’clocks are here,” he says, swiveling his head in search of workers. Roaming the floor, eyes scanning like radar, he notes the “scarecrows” -- empty racks that should be filled with cargo pants or button-down shirts, and shelves that need socks and sweaters. Then he ambles over to the electronics department.

“We’re going to need more Panasonic DVD players,” Gutierrez says. “PlayStation 2s, we’ve got to get more of those guys out here.”

The store starts to stir. A floor-mopping machine hums; someone flips on a vacuum. A worker fills racks with nose-hair trimmers.

But where is his “replenisher team,” Gutierrez wonders, on this, the mother of all shopping days. He most urgently needs the fine jewelry department “opener,” who must retrieve diamond jewelry from a safe, arrange it in the display case, count it and then have the count confirmed by a security guard. The process takes about an hour.

It’s nearly 6:30. The store opens at 7.

Gutierrez bounds up the stairs to an office, flips through the work schedule and starts making calls, glancing repeatedly at his watch.

“We don’t have a 6 o’clock person today,” he says to an employee who answers the phone. He’s advised that they do. “Well, she’s not here,” he says.

He dials another number, tracking down the tardy worker. She’s on her way. He calls for backup.

“Hello, Frances? Try to get here before 7,” he says.

“This is the entertaining part,” he adds. “You’ve got to start scrambling for people.”

With 25 minutes until “showtime,” Gutierrez hustles back downstairs to see if the openers have arrived to stock cash registers with money. His pace quickens as a frantic rendition of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” permeates the air.

Finally, some good news: “I’m here,” shouts a voice from the jewelry department. Gutierrez stations a security guard at the counter, figuring the inventorying of diamonds won’t be finished by the time the doors open.

“We can’t stop business because the girls are late,” he says.

The picture quickly brightens as more workers materialize. “Juniors’ cashier is here, men’s cashier is here, petites’ cashier is here,” Gutierrez says. “I’ve got to find three more cashiers.”

He stops repeatedly to page various departments to see which workers are at their posts.

“When they don’t call back, it’s kind of scary,” he says.

Now, however, it’s time for the daily “rally meeting,” meant to rev up employees, tell them about the prior day’s results and update them on new sale items. Gutierrez speaks into an intercom, calling all workers to fine jewelry.

Very few respond. He tries once more.

“Again, good morning. We open in about nine minutes,” he says. “I know there’s not a lot of you, but we need to get our meeting in.”

About 30 workers, some who have been with the store a decade or more, converge from all directions. Gutierrez reels off the good news: The store’s sales hit $247,000 on Friday. Apparel: up 7% compared with last year. Electronics: up 23%. Housewares: up 34%.

“Fine jewelry was up 46%,” he adds. “Good job, fine jewelry.”

Each nugget of good news elicits a single clap from employees, part of a well-practiced drill.

The minutes tick by as shoppers gather outside the store. A light blinks on in the diamond jewelry display case. In the electronics department, TV screens jump to life. Escalators begin to move. The doors are unlocked

“If you’re ready, I’m ready,” Gutierrez says to his workers. “Let’s go out and rock ‘n’ roll.”

Many of the shoppers look bleary-eyed, but some are evidently quite caffeinated. “I’ve already had about five cups of coffee,” a man in the tool department says, speaking into his cellphone.

Andres Dorantes sips French vanilla coffee as he strolls through the store with his girlfriend, Isabel Sanchez. They were drawn by Sears’ early bird offer -- 10% off all merchandise until 10 a.m.

“We can’t afford to pay full price,” says Dorantes, 20, a painter in an auto body shop who lives in Hawthorne. “If we can save an extra 10%, it helps us financially.”

Soon enough, the store is a kaleidoscope of action, with Gutierrez at the center.

He walks through, straightening fixtures, instructing employees and assisting customers. Gutierrez knows retail. He has been in the business for more than two decades, including stints at Macy’s, Montgomery Ward and Pick’n Save. He has worked for Sears for four years and managed this store for 16 months.

By 8:25 a.m. on Saturday, a dozen people are in line at one cash register, one of 38 that will ring all day long. Gutierrez is downright chipper.

“The nice thing about retail is it’s always different -- different battles, different issues,” he says.

It’s also intensely time-consuming, especially at Christmas. And as a family man, Gutierrez admits that he is pulled in two directions.

“As a father of four, you get home and everybody has a need,” says Gutierrez, who sleeps about five hours a night. “I put them all to bed and they all have different bedtimes.”

Recently, he attended a school choir performance in which his 10-year-old daughter performed and a “Hotel Bethlehem” church play in which two of his children had roles. These, Gutierrez says, are the season’s “true commitments.”

“You have to make time for that,” he says. “But nothing else really gets in the way. Running the store is a full-time job.”

By the end of the day Saturday, all of his workers have shown up and the store has met its sales goal (although Gutierrez declines to reveal what that is).

“We made our plan and we beat last year,” he says. “These are good times.”