Shoppers Carry Out Tradition of Pre-Dawn Bargain Hunting

Christmas 2004 wasn’t gone by much more than four hours before Brian Marks began buying for Christmas 2005.

Marks and his wife, Karen, were queued up at 3:15 a.m. Sunday to participate in a holiday tradition: really early bird shopping. They were among the crowd of 125 or so who waited in the chilly, pre-dawn darkness for Stats, a home decorating and craft supply store in Seal Beach, to open its doors at 4 a.m.

“We are going to Nordstrom next,” said the Cypress resident as he pushed a shopping cart filled with $300 worth of lighted gingerbread men and candy cane decorations for his outdoor display.

Marks had a single complaint about the morning: “The Starbucks across the street wasn’t open.”

One in five U.S. consumers planned to shop Sunday, according to a survey by the International Council of Shopping Centers.

Lured by coupons, extra discounts and an aversion to crowds, people are increasingly shopping earlier in the day, according to retail analysts.

“If you get someone in your store early,” said Britt Beemer of America’s Research Group in Charleston, S.C., “you will get the greater share of the dollars they are going to spend that day.”

The consumer-behavior research firm estimates that a large retailer, such as a department store or discounter, nabs as much as 60% of a shopper’s budget for the day if it’s the first place the shopper plunks down a credit card or wad of cash.

That’s why opening in the wee hours has become something of an arms race among retailers. A four-store Southern California company, Stats may be the earliest of the early birds. But May Department Stores Co.’s Robinsons-May wasn’t far behind, opening at 6 a.m. Most other major retailers planned to be open by 7 a.m. -- two to three hours earlier than on a normal Sunday.

By the time a Robinsons-May manager unlocked the doors at a Los Cerritos store with a remarkably cheerful “Good morning” for the hour, there were upward of 50 people waiting at each entrance.

“I am going to Robinsons-May at 6, Macy’s at 7 and Nordstrom at 8,” said Richard Garcia of Bellflower as he parked his car. “You get the best deals early after Christmas.”

“If you go the day after Thanksgiving, you just get a headache.”

Like many others who were out and about Sunday, Garcia had visited the mall over the last two weeks to case out what he would purchase, at deep discounts, to give as gifts next year.

“I look for kitchen items, household goods, terry cloth bathrobes,” he said, “stuff that won’t be out of style 12 months from now.”

Gretchen Kerr of Long Beach also engaged in pre-sale surveillance, dragging husband Keith into Stats on Thursday to look at a $499.99 plastic reindeer.

“We just had to have it to put out next year,” she said.

The Kerrs arrived by 4:15 a.m. and were checking out with the deer -- now $249.99 -- five minutes later.

At a nearby cash register, a Japanese couple had filled seven shopping carts with more than $1,100 of half-price outdoor decorations. They plan to resell them at a store in Japan next year.

Store manager John Stathatos said he didn’t care what people did with the goods they bought; he was just happy they bought them.

A private, family-owned business, Stats doesn’t release sales figures, Stathatos said. But he said the store was on track to do four to five times the business of any other day of the year by the time it closed at 10 p.m. Sunday.

“We are a direct importer on most of this, so even at 50% off we are going to make money,” Stathatos said.

This year’s post-Christmas sales are going to be an important part of the retailing equation, Michael Niemira, chief economist for the International Council of Shopping Centers, said Sunday.

One reason is that gift cards, which don’t count as sales until they’re used, are more and more popular as gift items.

Indeed, gift cards helped make last Dec. 26 the third-busiest shopping day of 2003, analysts said. And the full week after Christmas accounts for at least 20% of holiday sales, said Scott Krugman of the National Retail Federation.

For the entire season, the trade group estimates that retailers will garner a 4.5% sales gain over last year.

Niemira was less optimistic.

“Last year we saw a 4% increase in holiday sales and if we get a 3% to 4% increase this year, that will be pretty good,” Niemira said.

The first weeks of the season were disappointing, he said, though buying picked up significantly in the last week.

“It is unclear how this week will play out,” he said

Retailers are expected to provide details later this week about how their sales fared.

“When we see all the actual tallies, I think we will find that this season was moderately good, but not great.”