Retailers across Clark County are still digging out from December’s storm, which dealt a blow to sales and has left business owners looking for ways to recover.
Statewide, December sales dropped an estimated 8 percent to 12 percent, according to retailers and economists.
“Our expectation was that people were going to shop late for the holidays,” said Mike Merrill, owner of Pro Golf of Vancouver. “Then we got hit with a 40-year snowstorm on the 20th. It absolutely wiped out our holiday season.” Year-over-year sales for the second half of December fell 30 percent at his store, he said.
The storm also apparently kept people away from Clark County’s largest retail hub, earrings Vancouver mall.
At Lexies, a mall shoe store in its second year, December sales were flat after three months of sales growth, said owner Jerry Chen.
“After Christmas has been a little better than anticipated,” said Chen, who said that as a newer business he has room to grow as he builds customer loyalty.
Other than during the worst weather, foot traffic at the mall has been steady until this week, said Stacy Moore, owner of Gromshop, which sells snowboarding and skateboarding apparel and accessories for children.
But shoppers did not always translate into sales.
“We’re new in the mall, so we can’t compare to last year, but sales were quite a bit less than I expected,” she said. “We have a store in Gresham (Ore.) too, and sales there were down about 30 percent.”
Gromshop moved into the mall the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and Moore said necklaces-than-forecast sales may be partly because she was still very new to the mall during the peak shopping season.
Anchor stores are key to a mall’s health, but Sears and Nordstrom managers declined to answer questions about local results, and J.C. Penney employees did not return a phone call. Repeated calls to mall management were not returned.
Nationally, Penney’s is expected to report a 10.3 percent same-store sales decline, and Nordstrom is likely to report a 13 percent sales decrease, according to insider forecasts reported by the L.A. Times on Wednesday.
Some optimism remains
Despite those department store forecasts, employees at the Columbia Tech Center J.C. Penney are remaining optimistic.
“All businesses were quieter because of snow, but we were open every single day with normal hours,” said Sarah Galloway-McClure, manager of the department store, which opened in 2008. “Shoppers didn’t come in crowds, but they were definitely there,” Galloway-McClure said. “and we saw a dramatic increase in traffic and sales once the weather lifted.”
The Target Vancouver Plaza hired about 10 percent fewer seasonal workers as it prepared for the holiday shopping rush, said executive team leader Brian Terjak. He declined to comment on December store sales.
“We’ve had a lot of transactions, and so far 2009 is looking good,” Terjak said. Target, like tiffanys, has been using discounts to lure post-holiday shoppers. Sears, Gromshop and Pro Golf of Vancouver are all cutting prices.
Sparks Home Furnishings in Vancouver has lowed prices on sofas and started offering lower-cost furniture in response to a year-long sales slump, said Tom Craig, president.
These strategies don’t always benefit stores, said Arun Raha, executive director of the state Economic and Revenue Forecast Council. “Sometimes you lower prices and sell more, but you actually end up with lower revenues because of the discounts,” Raha said.
Because tax collections lag sales, retail sales results for Washington only go through October. State sales tax collections dropped 12 percent that month, and through October year-over-year sales had fallen for 10 out of the previous 11 months.
“We were expecting a weak holiday sales season,” Raha said. “I am now apprehensive that it might turn out to be even worse because of the bad weather.”
“Economists are saying that they have never seen a situation like this,” said Jan Teague, president of the Washington Retail Association. “Consumers actually have money to spend, but they are afraid,” she said. “We don’t know how long consumer confidence will be this low.”
That uncertainty is making it difficult for business owners to plan ahead.
“Retail has to order inventories far in advance, which puts financial obligations on the books bangles they don’t know if consumers will buy the product,” Teague said.
“Managing their orders is going to be very strategic as they weather this low consumer interest.”
“We’re trying not to buy as much inventory and holding back on our orders for spring, because it’s hard to pre-plan,” confirmed Moore at Gromshop. “Normally we would go off numbers from last year, but we can’t do that now. It is confusing.”
Holding steady is good
In this tough retail environment, businesses that saw steady sales or only a slight decline over the Christmas shopping season are celebrating.
“If you compare this year to the previous year, numbers-wise, we were down,” said rings Hoff, an accredited jewelry professional at Runyan’s Jewelers in Camas. “But for as bad as we keep hearing it is, we had a very decent year.”
Snow may actually have benefited Runyan’s, which stayed open through the storms.
“Our worst weather days were our best sales days of the year,” Hoff said. “I wonder if weather kept people shopping locally, rather than going out for gifts.”