After nearly a month of disheartening holiday sales, Southland merchants are bracing for what they hope will be a three-day sales blitz, the retail equivalent of hanging shiny new ornaments on an otherwise sagging Christmas tree.
Hit hard by the economic slowdown, department store executives and small shopkeepers alike say they hope that the malls will bustle and cash registers will ring starting Saturday and running through Christmas Eve.
Consumers who have postponed making gift-buying decisions will finally be forced to act--or wait until next year. Merchants, forced to keep sweetening the pot with sales and discounts, will have one final chance to move merchandise off the shelves before having to slash prices for after-Christmas sales.
"I don't think (merchants) have faced a time in recent memory where three days have been more important to them. This can be the difference between an OK Christmas and a very disappointing year," said Richard Giss, partner-in-charge of the Retailing Services Group for the accounting firm Deloitte & Touche in Los Angeles.
As if to foretell the comeback, the blast of cold arctic air this week was being welcomed by store owners as a way to put people into the Christmas spirit, into malls and into expensive jackets and ski gear.
The calendar is also giving retailers reason to keep fingers tightly crossed. The season has been a little longer, with five weekends since Thanksgiving Day instead of four. And more important, since Christmas Day falls on Tuesday, shoppers are likely to take Monday off or work only a partial day. As a result, merchants believe that Christmas Eve may be one of the busiest shopping days this year.
A three-day shopping period before a holiday typically adds 6% to 8% to sales revenue for the month, said Rita Mincavage, manager of merchandise publicity for J. C. Penney's Southern California stores. "You can say that about any holiday, but what's really nice is this holiday is Christmas," she added.
Although the busy Christmas Eve shopping day could add a lift to sales, retailing executives say they would rather have seen the buying season pick up speed earlier.
"It's certainly a big plus as far as shopping goes, but it's a mixed blessing because it makes it more likely people will put off their shopping and retailers would like to see them get in there early," said E. Harlin Smith, a spokesman for Carter Hawley Hale Stores, owner of the Broadway Southern California, Weinstock's, Emporium and Broadway Southwest chains.
