ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 10, 1995 TAG: 9512080041
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: G-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL STAFF WRITER
MONDAY, 8:45 a.m. Far too early in the day, let alone the week, to be excited about anything. Especially work. Especially during the Christmas shopping season.
But here's one of the department heads spelling out the letters "G-O-O-D-Y-S" with her arms. And there's a group of sales associates clustered around the checkout aisles laughing about something - most likely some problem customers.
Debbie Grisso, manager of the Goody's Family Clothing store at Tanglewood Mall, kicks off the daily "power session" by reviewing the store's newest sales flyers.
"They do get a free box with their purchase," says Grisso, holding up a pink insert advertising a Christmas promotion that starts today. How many? someone wants to know. "Well, common sense says they get one box with one shirt," Grisso replies. "If they want more, come and get me."
She continues. "Basics. Do we still have turtlenecks back there?" she asks. Nods from the crew. "All the basics, everybody - turtlenecks, flannel shirts, Hanes fleece - all of those sellers, we need to make sure we're getting them onto the floor."
A few customers - mall-walkers, judging from their sweatsuits and athletic shoes - are peering in through the front gate, and Grisso checks her watch.
"OK, it's 9 o'clock," she says. "We need to open the door."
If you didn't know any better - and just measured the seasons by store displays - it might seem that Christmas falls somewhere between Halloween and Thanksgiving. Or maybe even earlier.
Drugstores were stocking Christmas candy canes right across the aisle from Halloween candy corn. Christmas cards hit the shelves before Thanksgiving greetings. The elevator-music version of Christmas carols was rubbing sales clerks' nerves raw before summer clothing had been packed onto final clearance racks.
At Goody's, employees started setting up Christmas displays Oct. 15, a week earlier than last year.
Never mind that there's an extra day between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. Or that Hanukkah begins a week later. Many retailers pushed Christmas forward even further, with earlier product roll-outs and earlier price discounts.
Kenneth Gassman Jr., a retail analyst with Davenport & Co. of Virginia in Richmond, blames the early emergence of sale signs partly on the schedule merchants must follow for ordering merchandise from manufacturers and vendors. Most retailers ordered their Christmas stock in early summer, he says, when consumer spending seemed to be stabilizing from a months-long malaise.
But after the orders were placed, back-to-school shopping - often a predictor of Christmas spending - was sluggish, thanks in part to warm weather that kept kids in shorts well into the school year. The trend continued through October, leaving stores stuffed with uncomfortably large inventories.
"We're getting three trucks a week," says Anne Kendrick, head of the accessories and outerwear department at Goody's. Each truck delivers between 225 and 260 cartons of merchandise. "When you get volume like that into a store, you've got to be ready to discount."
Despite the early discounts, some merchants say customers still aren't buying like they did in Christmas seasons past.
According to a recent Gallup poll, 57 percent of shoppers polled said they plan to spend about the same amount on Christmas gifts as they did last year; 30 percent plan to spend less.
Mike Poldiak, manager of New River Valley Mall, thinks retailers themselves might be partly to blame for consumers' wait-and-see attitude.
"We're educating the consumer a little too much with all these sales," Poldiak says. People have learned to hold out until the last week or two before Christmas, because they know that's when the biggest sales will start.
Gassman blames the slow season on two major factors: the continued fear of corporate restructuring that has meant massive layoffs at some large companies, and the enormous amount of debt that consumers have accumulated in the last few years.
According to RAM Research Group, a Frederick, Md., credit card tracking firm, Americans are charging 24 percent more this year than last; in 1993, those same consumers charged almost 23 percent more than in 1992.
Total bank credit card charge volume is expected to exceed $700 billion in the United States this year, RAM reports. Until consumers pay off their existing debts, Gassman says, they won't buy a whole lot more.
Ed Thorburn, manager of Saslow's Jewelers at Tanglewood Mall, agrees.
"I think people owe too much," he says. "I myself owe more than I've owed before, and I can't quite figure out why."
But to say simply that retailers are, across the board, having a lousy season oversimplifies the situation.
The summer introduction of Windows 95 has made this a big year for computer software and hardware merchants such as Software Etc. in Christiansburg. That store, which opened at New River Valley Mall just six weeks ago, has far exceeded any sales predictions. What's hot? Windows 95 accessories and computer games, says assistant manager Melinda Harris.
Counterintuitive as it may seem, diamonds are top sellers at many jewelry stores this year. These gems, while pricy, are more than mere trinkets, says Thorburn. They're also investments.
Mary Riley, owner of Blacksburg's Mainstreet Bazaar, says customers are snapping up bread machines and food processors - expensive, yet practical, gifts.
Gassman sees a national trend toward buying jewelry, computers, high-end housewares and better apparel this Christmas. The era of conspicuous consumption has ended, he says, and consumers are being much more selective about their purchases, buying gifts that will add value to their lives or grow in worth.
Riley says she's having a terrific Christmas season. And she's tired of hearing the predictions of retail naysayers.
"When you hear those stories, it can frighten people," Riley says. "It can frighten people into not having their normal Christmas."
Just what is a "normal" Christmas? For average retailers, it's seeing 25 percent of total yearly sales come in the two-month period leading up to Dec. 25.
The National Retail Federation estimates that discount department stores such as Goody's do a third of their yearly sales during these few weeks. Same in the consumer electronics business. Jewelry stores do 40 percent of their business between October and Christmas.
Shops with highly specialized inventories may rely even more heavily on the holiday season. Things Remembered, a Tanglewood Mall shop that sells and engraves pens, key chains and other gifts, does about 75 percent of its business in November and December alone, says store manager Rachel St. Clair.
During the first 10 months of the year, when the shop relies on weddings and graduations to spur its business, St. Clair may sell $1,200 worth of gifts a week. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, that figure leaps to $10,000 to $12,000 a week.
This year, business started out slow, she says. But sales have picked up, thanks to a few large corporate orders. The week before Christmas usually is the busiest by far.
"We're having a great season," St. Clair says.
But even a lucrative Christmas can take its toll - if not on the balance sheet, then on the retailers themselves.
"It's so easy for people to get overwhelmed by all the customers," Goody's Grisso says. That's one reason she holds those daily meetings - to keep her employees' spirits up despite the tough crowds.
"We almost had a fight in line one day," says Kendrick at Goody's, shaking her head. Customers come in with discount coupons and cartloads of merchandise, and they expect to whiz through the store and finish all their shopping over their lunch hour. "We don't have a guaranteed five-minute checkout," she says. Not like those pizza places.
"And the dressing rooms...'' she continues, rolling her eyes. "People are taking their clothes off and dropping them in piles on the floor."
St. Clair sometimes is closeted in her mall kiosk at midnight, trying to catch up on engraving that didn't get done during the day. She has just four employees, and most of them don't know how to run the engraving machine. So it ends up falling on her shoulders.
"We burn the candle at both ends around here," she says. "We have to."
LENGTH: Long : 155 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS/Staff. 1. Debbie Grisso, managerby CNBof the Goody's Family Clothing store in Tanglewood Mall, runs a
morning meeting to ger her sales employees' spirits up for the
shopping season. color. 2. At the Things Remembered kiosk in
Tanglewood Mall, Rachel St. Clair sometimes works to midnight
finishing engravings on the personalized gifts she sells. 3. Goody's
employees, including Brandy Webb-Bey (right) and Lynette Carper
(beside her), sit in on their morning meeting. Graphics: Charts. 1.
Hot items. Holiday sales. color.