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Thursday, September 9, 2010 |
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Post-holiday shoppers hit local stores
Published December 27, 2009
SEGUIN — Local retailers reported brisk business Saturday as shoppers flocked to stores looking for post-Christmas bargains.
Retailers took advantage of post-holiday deals on decorations, toys and other goods by offering “doorbuster” deals more common to black Friday than to the New Year.
Walmart was offering half-off toys and Toys R Us touted buy one, get one half-off offers. At Sears, customers could find coats for 70 percent off while some jeans were $10. At Seguin’s Walmart, the parking lot was very nearly full over the lunch hour on Saturday, and the cars were still streaming in for the a clearance sale that continues today and runs until all is gone.
“It’s extremely busy!” Walmart Manager Bucky Kalina exclaimed. “The 50 percent off clearance sale brought them in, and the end-of-season toys brought them in also.”
Kalina said he was counting on remaining busy into next week.
“It’s 50 percent off until we sell out on the Christmas clearance items, and we’re open 24 hours,” Kalina said.
Sarah Grivois of Colorado Springs was only one of the customers contributing to the long lines at Walmart Saturday. She was taking care of the post-holiday sales to finish her Christmas shopping, but she had an excuse.
Grivois and her family tried to drive down to visit local relatives on Christmas Eve, but got caught up in the ice storm that brought rain to the Panhandle and a white Christmas to parts of the Dallas area.
“We didn’t get here until late on Christmas Day, and there was no place open to shop,” she said. “We’re doing it today.”
At Bealls in Seguin, Assistant Manager Tanya Ramirez said the store offered “buy one, get one for a dollar” deals on items designated for discounts by red and yellow tags throughout the store.
“We’re busy — pretty steady,” Ramirez said.
Discounted items included clothing, holiday ornaments and many others, and Ramirez said returns appeared to be down, good news to customer service clerks.
“We’re not seeing as many as we expected,” she said.
Around the country, the Associated Press reported retailers received a much-needed last-minute sales surge in the final days before Dec. 25, fueled by shoppers who delayed buying, waited for bigger discounts that never came or were slowed by last weekend’s big East Coast snowstorm.
Gap Inc.’s Old Navy brand was selling men’s and women’s jeans for $15 for the day and an e-mail encouraged shoppers to “redeem your gift cards today.”
Gift card sales are not recorded until shoppers redeem them.
But now they’re counting on the days after Christmas to perk up overall holiday sales in a season that looks like it’s modestly better than last year’s disaster.
The full holiday picture won’t be known until merchants report December sales Jan. 7.
But most expect merchants’ fourth-quarter profits should be intact because they didn’t press the panic button.
ShopperTrak is sticking to its prediction for a 1.6 percent gain, compared with a 5.9 percent drop a year ago.
The National Retail Federation expects that total retail sales will slip 1 percent, though some experts say that might be a bit too cautious. A year ago, they fell 3.4 percent by the trade group’s calculations.
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