Oct 27, 2008

Stores get early start on wooing holiday shoppersBy Joyce Smith and Laura BauerKansasCity.com

If you think layaway went away with rotary dial phones and disco, think again.

Retailers are using that old-fashioned perk, as well as newfangled promotions, to persuade cash-strapped consumers to spend, spend, spend.

The promotional push is critical for retailers. The holiday season — which can make up as much as 40 percent of a retailer’s annual sales — is projected to be modest at best this year as consumers plan to shop less, differently and more carefully.

“Everyone I know is just hurting, and the stores are going to have to offer some lower prices or something to get people in,” said Shannon Lowe, a stay-at-home mother of two from De Soto. “I’m going with every place that has a deal.”

Indeed, a new survey of more than 7,000 consumers by the National Retail Federation found that consumers plan to spend an average of $832 on holiday-related shopping, up a paltry 1.9 percent from 2007’s $817. That’s the smallest increase in planned consumer spending since the survey began six years ago.

Despite the tepid outlook, Stacy Janiak, spokeswoman for the consulting firm Deloitte, said that low inventory levels mean retailers may not have to resort to “fire sales.” Instead, stores may expand private labels, enhance rewards programs and offer extra values such as layaway and savings coupons.

Some stores, trying to stretch the season, in late September stocked shelves with Christmas decorations and gift ideas along with Halloween items. Now they are zeroing in on the day after Thanksgiving — Black Friday — the traditional start of the holiday shopping season.

Still, saving consumers’ money is the clear theme designed to drive sales.

The Northland’s Zona Rosa shopping center, for example, will open at 12:01 a.m. Nov. 28, offering $25 gift cards for the first 1,000 customers 16 or older. Many of the shops also are planning discounts, and while the center will officially close at 3 a.m. and reopen at 8 a.m., many retailers plan to stay open all night to be among the first to grab those sales.

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