GILROY
– They came. They saw. They bought TV sets.
Gilroy’s Wal-Mart lured in shoppers at 6 a.m. today, the busiest
shopping day of the year, with specially priced Symphonic
televisions and other electronic gadgets.
GILROY – They came. They saw. They bought TV sets.
Gilroy’s Wal-Mart lured in shoppers at 6 a.m. today, the busiest shopping day of the year, with specially priced Symphonic televisions and other electronic gadgets.
Hundreds of customers waited outside the store anticipating the special deals inside. When the doors opened, the consumers rushed inside in a frantic dash to find the discounted merchandise.
Despite the crowds that showed up for the specials at Wal-Mart and Gilroy Premium Outlet stores this morning, analysts believe consumers will be tight-fisted this year.
Gilroy resident Daniene Marciano stood outside Wal-Mart with three 27-inch color sets (specially priced at $148.62 each), waiting for her husband Bill Marciano to come with the car. The couple had arrived at the store at 5:45 a.m. to be there when doors opened at 6 a.m. for the five-hour special sale, she said.
“We got a lot of Christmas shopping done,” she said. “They have fabulous prices, and the staff has been terrific.”
Besides the televisions, two of which will be Christmas presents, the Marcianos also bought a Hewlett Packard computer for $698 which has “all the bells and whistles,” including a printer and monitor.
Sandra Drew, a former Morgan Hill resident now living in Oakdale, also waited outside Wal-Mart for her daughters and granddaughters to get through the check-out lines. Drew and her family have enjoyed an annual tradition for at least 15 years of getting up around 5 a.m. on the day after Thanksgiving to get to the stores by 6 a.m. and “hunt and gather” merchandise.
The men of Drew’s family prefer to stay at home and watch football games on TV, she said.
“The men are all home laughing. There’s no way we can get them out here,” she said. “It’s fun. It keeps our family busy together.”
By 8:30 a.m., the crowds had diminished in the Wal-Mart store and shopping reached a less frantic pace.
Many stores in Gilroy’s Premium Outlets shopping center opened early at 7 a.m. for the big shopping day, but some stores experienced fewer customers than last year coming in for the special sales at that hour.
“Last year was probably better than it is now,” said Fidel Vargas, manager of Haggar Clothing, a men’s apparel store. “I think it’s mostly the economy. Everyone’s going out of business or losing their jobs. … People are just not spending the same.”
He said a few customers have mentioned they have reduced spending because of financial worries about a possible war with Iraq so they have been more conservative with their money.
Haggar’s doors opened at 7 a.m. with sales discounts of 20 to 50 percent. In two hours, the store had only three paying customers, he said.
Other Prime Outlets stores such as The Gap and K.B. Toys opened at 5 a.m.
The Lennox store, which specializes in china and decorative gifts, was busy with about a dozen customers at 8 a.m. Sisters Amanda Mahowald, from Phoenix, and Erica Mahowald, of Monterey, looked at Christmas tree decorations for their mother at Lennox.
“We’ll do this all day,” Amanda said. “We’re gonna shop ’til we drop.”
Erica said they came up from Monterey because the stores in that city were too busy, and they wanted to get the deals at the outlets.
Shane Parks, manager at Lennox, said he saw more cars in the outlet’s parking lot than last year on the day after Thanksgiving. He expects stores to do reasonably well this Christmas shopping season.
“I would say everything in general is doing OK,” he said. “We’re not killing ourselves or anything.”
Lennox will have its usual Christmas season sales, with discounts of 20 to 50 percent, he said.
Gilroy resident Laurie Oda reached the outlet shopping center at about 8 a.m. and agreed with Parks that there was a good crowd of shoppers at that hour.
“Even though there’s parking now, there won’t be spaces later today,” she said. “People will have to park on the side streets.”
Oda said the special sales are what lured her to the stores. She spent $125 on clothes for herself at the Jones New York store, a women’s apparel shop for which she had a $25-off coupon. She planned to spend the rest of her shopping trip looking for Christmas presents.
She projects she’ll spend about $300 on Christmas presents this year, including items she bought earlier this year.
With the downturn in the economy and prospects for a war with Iraq, consumers are going to think twice about opening their wallets and purses for Christmas this year, analysts said.
“Sales will be intense. Consumers will turn out in full force to the mall, but there is a general feeling that consumers are going to be reticent,” said Kurt Barnard, president of Barnard’s Retail Trend Report, based in Upper Montclair, N.J. “They will look at the price tag before they look at the product.”
The nation’s largest merchants have protected themselves with lean inventories so they won’t have mounds of leftovers Dec. 26, he said.
But stores also might have the opposite problem – finding themselves with not enough merchandise if consumers decide to splurge, he said. Last December, shoppers pleasantly surprised retailers with last-minute buying binges that resulted in better-than-anticipated results.
Merchants did not see encouraging signs in November. Haggar’s Vargas said November was a disappointing month for sales, although in October, the Gilroy store increased sales 15 percent compared with October last year.
The Washington-based National Retail Federation predicts total holiday retail sales, which excludes restaurant and auto sales, will increase by 4 percent to roughly $209.5 billion. That would make it the weakest increase since 1997.
According to the Gallup Organization, which surveyed 3,000 consumers, Americans are projected to spend $769 each on gifts this holiday – about $51 less than last year, which in turn was lower than 2000 and 1999.
While the Thanksgiving weekend starts the shopping spree, it no longer is the busiest period of the season. Last year, the weekend accounted for 8.4 percent of holiday sales. The busiest period was the last week before Christmas.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
