Storm threatens retailers' last holiday push
LOS ANGELES/CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. retailers' final sales push before Christmas was under threat as a heavy winter snowstorm struck the East Coast and kept shoppers at home on "Super Saturday."
Super Saturday typically accounts for about $15 billion in retail sales, and analysts said the U.S. northeast contributes around 30 percent of that amount.
It often vies with Black Friday, the day after U.S. Thanksgiving, as the biggest single sales day of the holiday season.
The storm -- which already has the Baltimore-Washington area under a thick blanket of snow -- could bring blizzard conditions to other major shopping areas like New York City and Boston. The National Weather Service warned of "extremely treacherous" travel conditions throughout the region stretching from North Carolina all the way up to lower New England.
"The one thing a retailer doesn't want is a major snowstorm on the Saturday before Christmas," said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at the NPD Group. "This is definitely not the Christmas gift any retailer would ever ask for.
"It was kind of eerie the Friday night before Christmas to see some of the retail malls not as busy as they should have been," he added about the sporadic shopper traffic he saw at stores on the East Coast.
SHOVELS, SALT
Trend spotter Marian Salzman said she saw empty streets and parking lots as she checked stores at midday in Connecticut, where snow had not yet started to fall.
At a Wal-Mart store in southwestern Connecticut, snow shovels and ice salt were in greater demand than holiday gifts, said Salzman, president of Euro RSCG Worldwide PR.
Severe weather could depress sales on Saturday at retailers with a large presence in U.S. Northeast, including Bon-Ton Stores , Saks Inc , Macy's Inc and American Eagle Outfitters Inc .
Analysts said some people could shift their gift buying to Sunday while others could choose to shop online.
"Retail sales will be somewhat lower but the big story will be the migration to online outlets," said Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland's Smith School of Business.
That scenario could be a boon for sites run by Amazon.com or Gap Inc , but consumers may have to pay unwanted last-minute shipping fees to ensure gifts arrive by December 25.
Even before the storm, nobody was predicting a stellar year for holiday sales as consumers are still under pressure from a double-digit unemployment rate and a weak economy.
"I am spending less on each gift but I am not cutting anyone off my list," said Gwynne Nemcek, an administrator at New York University, who carried a Macy's bag as she shopped at Manhattan Mall in New York City's Herald Square.
CUTS NOT AS DEEP
Retailers have worked to avoid a repeat of last year, when a global economic meltdown left them buried in excess merchandise and desperate to make a sale at almost any price.
Last year, it was not uncommon to see stores advertising 70 percent to 80 percent off. This year's cuts are not quite so deep.
Teen retailer Aeropostale's online ad offers 50 percent to 70 percent off, while Gap Inc's Banana Republic is offering 40 percent off.
Consumers surveyed in late November by Consumer Edge Research said they planned to spend an average of $402 on gifts this season. That was down from $440 those polled in October said they were planning for.
Holiday sales forecasts have narrowed over the course of the shopping season to a range of down 1 percent to up 1 percent from 2008, when sales fell for the first time since the National Retail Federation started tracking the data.
Trend spotter Salzman said she has a hunch that sales will be down more than 1 percent. "It feels like nobody's interested or around or engaged."
(Reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles, Phil Wahba, Dhanya Skariachan and Nicole Maestri in New York and Jessica Wohl and Ben Klayman in Chicago, Editing by Xavier Briand)