Late Shoppers Help Lift Retailers

Shoppers -- some holding out for the best bargains, others delayed by winter storms in the Midwest -- hit the nation’s malls Friday looking for last-minute presents and snapping up gift cards.

Retailers, struggling with disappointing holiday sales throughout the season, were heartened by an uptick in sales at malls this week, and traffic appeared solid Friday.

Some stores were betting that Christmas Eve sales would get an assist from the calendar: Because Christmas falls on a Saturday, many employers gave workers Friday off.

That was a help to shoppers who had procrastinated, said Todd Jones, an analyst at money manager PNC Advisors in Philadelphia.

Many merchants were finding themselves in the same position as they were last year, relying on last-minute shoppers, who seemed to be delaying their buying even more than usual.

In Southern California, many residents scrambled to wrap up their Christmas gift buying Friday, crowding malls and leaving retailers looking forward to picking up more business from post-holiday bargain hunters.

The rush began early on, with some retailers reporting shoppers waiting outside stores, eager to begin checking off the remaining gifts on their to-do lists.

“We had a lot of people waiting to get in this morning,” said Cecilia Campos, manager at the Bath & Body Works store in the Burbank Town Center mall. “At noon we get a rush, and after 4 p.m. it’s a line out the door.”

A few shoppers, like Paola Garcia of Burbank, attributed their last-minute buying sprees to busy work schedules and other commitments -- but also to holding out for the best deals.

“I work during the night, so I couldn’t come before,” said Garcia, 19, a full-time student. “There’s better sales now.”

Kmart Holding Corp. and Sears, Roebuck & Co. were among major retailers offering discounts of as much as 75% to lure late shoppers and salvage the holiday season.

Lisa Gibbons, a spokeswoman for Sears, said that traffic was stronger on Christmas Eve than a year ago.

In 2003, a late spending surge gave retailers a better-than-expected holiday season. In 2002, however, the sales boost just before Christmas wasn’t sufficient to overcome December’s earlier weakness.

The November-December period can account for almost 25% of retailers’ annual sales.

At the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn., traffic was dominated by male shoppers in the final two days before Christmas, said Maureen Bausch, vice president of business development for the mall.

“It’s mostly men, which is very typical this time of year,” Bausch said.

Karen MacDonald, a spokeswoman at Taubman Centers Inc., which operates or owns 22 malls across the country, said gift-card sales had seen double-digit increases compared with a year ago.

Michael P. Niemira, chief economist at the International Council of Shopping Centers, was sticking with his latest holiday forecast, having lowered his year-over-year sales growth estimate to 2.5% to 3% this month.

He had originally projected sales for the November-December period would increase 3% to 4%.

The National Retail Federation continued to forecast a 4.5% gain in total holiday sales, which exclude restaurant and auto sales, said spokeswoman Ellen Tolley.

In Ohio and other parts of the Midwest, which were hit by a heavy snowstorm Thursday, hordes of shoppers were out Friday doing the gift buying they were supposed to do earlier in the week.

“If it had been like the last two days, I wouldn’t have come out,” said Pat Marler, who was shopping at the Eastgate Mall in suburban Cincinnati.