Stores

Alarmed by the financial meltdown, stores nationwide are slapping sale signs on fall sweaters, furniture and many other products -- frantically trying to attract shoppers who are cutting back. Some analysts were already expecting the weakest sales growth for the holiday season in 24 years, and with uncertainty roiling the banking system and a teetering economy, they figure Americans will make their lists and check them three or four times.

For pet lovers Janene Zakrajsek and Rob Gaudio, living in downtown Los Angeles presented some difficulties for their four-legged friends. Zakrajsek couldn't find the right kind of pet food for her cats, Bailey and Minx, without driving to a store across town. And with no dog parks nearby, Gaudio's Jack Russell terrier, Cosmo, had a tough time making friends. Not wanting to abandon their big-city lifestyle, the couple opened a pet store in December at the corner of 6th and Main streets.

After 59 years in business, the Mervyns department-store chain called it quits Friday -- promising a huge going-out-of-business sale just in time for the holidays. And there is plenty of competition for a close-out Christmas. Linens 'n Things Inc. began a liquidation sale Friday, and Shoe Pavilion Inc. starts one this weekend, according to firms that said they were hired to liquidate the stores. Already gone are the novelty retailer Sharper Image Corp.

There is no Neiman Marcus in Anchorage, no Saks Fifth Avenue. The high end at the 5th Avenue Mall downtown is Nordstrom and Eddie Bauer. After that, it's a long, slow slide toward JCPenney. Tucked a block behind the mall, on D Street, is where the smart money shops: the Out of the Closet consignment shop, which has taken on all the cachet of a world-class boutique after Gov. Sarah Palin called it her thrift shop of choice. But thrift shop it is not.

Early last month, behind the facades of Gower Gulch, that Old West town of Baskin-Robbins, Rite Aid and a Denny's restaurant facing Sunset Boulevard, some 46 vocalists and one showgirl poured into Hollywood Studio Bar and Grill, banding together for a cause the only way they know how -- by unleashing, for more than four hours, tunes about ducks that samba and personalizing the lyrics of "Sixteen Going on Seventeen."

On Wall Street, lawmakers are talking about how "toxic debt" threatens banks and lending. Out on Main Street, shoppers better start thinking about "toxic" gift cards from companies that could go bankrupt. They won't be worth the plastic they are printed on. There's a new realization that holding a gift card from a troubled retailer is like having a bank account without FDIC insurance. It's not an idle worry. Shoppers spent an estimated $26.

The red-tag sale signs dotting the aisles of retailers across the country Friday could just as easily be referring to the companies' stock prices. Despite the stock market's fifth straight advance, retailing shares slumped as the official holiday shopping season got underway. The Standard & Poor's retail-stock index fell 1.6% even as the S&P 500 rose 1% in an abbreviated trading session.

Delfino Turan remembers his first trip to a Best Buy store, but not very fondly. Turan, at the time a recent immigrant from Mexico, said he could barely understand what salespeople were saying. What's more, he couldn't afford to pay for the purchases he wanted upfront, and the store didn't offer to extend credit. So Turan now shops for electronics at the La Curacao department store near downtown, where he went the other day to replace the broken TV in the lunch truck he operates.

Just as they did at the start of the season, more of the nation's stores are pulling marathon hours in the holiday season's finale. But with smaller crowds at 4 a.m. than at 4 p.m., are the extended hours worth it? Experts say yes, noting that the additional labor costs are minimal compared with the goodwill that stores enjoy by offering a convenience to time-starved shoppers, especially when sales are already dismal.