The snowstorm that blanketed the US East Coast, closing malls and snowing in shoppers, spelled trouble for retailers, but elsewhere in the country stores saw a strong turnout on the last weekend before Christmas.
Eager to win business from snowed-in easterners, retail Web sites including Macy’s and J.C. Penney were offering free express shipping on Sunday. Traffic to retail Web sites spiked all weekend.
Elsewhere in the country, crowds looking for discounts found some, but far less than the 60 percent to 70 percent off sales they wanted.
Retailers head into the home stretch hoping the storm leaves pent-up demand that will give them one last boost.
A snowstorm the Saturday before Christmas, often the busiest shopping day of the year, is about as bad as it gets for retailers, said Marshal Cohen, chief retail industry analyst at market researcher NPD Group.
But there’s still time.
“If they’re not buying it online, they’ve got a plan to go out now when they do get dug out,” Cohen said. “They’ll hit the stores with a little more of a method to their madness, so all is not lost.”
“Super Saturday” usually accounts for US$15 billion worth of sales nationwide, said Scott Bernhardt of weather research firm Planalytics. Stores certainly did not hit that number this year, though Bernhardt said he wasn’t sure how much they missed by.
Retailers were still totaling the impact of the snowstorm on Sunday.
The first hard estimates are scheduled from ShopperTrak today.
Bernhardt said it was not yet clear how many stores closed, though many did around the Washington region, which received more than 63.5cm of snow.
Mall operator Taubman Centers closed four of its 24 centers early on Saturday.
The storm that stretched from the Carolinas to the northeastern New England states caused about one-third of Toys R Us stores to cut hours, but sales weren’t as bad as expected because people got out to shop before the storm hit, CEO Jerry Storch said. Online sales also rose.
He said retailers had been expecting a big shopping burst this week but with the storm, it will be even more frenzied, so the toy store chain is increasing staffing.
“There’s always that feeling ‘Oh I could just do it tomorrow’ when Christmas is at the end of the week,” he said of shoppers.
“Now you add in this storm,” he said.
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