Dec 28, 2008

Shops busy Saturday, but Christmas bottom line won’t be known for daysBy Peg McNicholSEMissourian.com

West Park Mall was bustling with people Saturday.

“You can tell it’s busy,” said Amy McAllister of Cape Girardeau. “People are parking all the way back to Taco Bell.”

McAllister preferred to wait in the car with her stepdaughter, Sierra Sams, 11, while Sierra’s father, Brian, made a quick trip to redeem a gift card at EB Games.

“It was nuts in there — people were shoulder to shoulder,” Brian Sams said when he returned to the car. “But they were fast, so it was OK.”

But a packed lot may not translate into holiday cheer for stores.

Holiday sales — which typically account for 30 percent to 50 percent of a retailer’s annual total — have been less than jolly. Job cuts, portfolio losses and other economic woes have many Americans pinching pennies. Winter storms kept some would-be shoppers from stores.

According to preliminary data from SpendingPulse, which tracks purchases paid by credit card, checks or cash, this year’s retail sales fell between 5.5 percent and 8 percent compared to last year’s totals. Excluding auto and gas sales, they fell 2 percent to 4 percent.

More people did appear to shop online, particularly in the last two weeks of the season, when storms hit. Online sales dipped just 2.3 percent, SpendingPulse said.

McAllister said she was one of those online buyers and was particularly pleased with Wal-Mart’s online service because “they send your order right to the store. I probably did all my Christmas shopping that way this year.”

A fuller indicator of how retailers fared will arrive Jan. 8, when major stores report same-store sales, or sales at locations open at least a year, for December.

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