Looking for after-Christmas clearance deals? Shops ordered more carefully this year
| Thursday, Dec 31 2009 03:55 PM
Last Updated Thursday, Dec 31 2009 03:56 PM
Crystal Lei paused in the toy aisle of a Target store in northeast Bakersfield to explain to her three excited children what a walkie talkie was. Before she could finish, they were distracted by action figures and off and running.
"We're here because we got a gift card for Christmas," said Lei, who was cruising for post-holiday bargains, but not finding much.
"I was here before Christmas and prices haven't changed much," she said.
Retailers would count that a victory.
Last year, stores were caught unaware by a recession that turned out to be longer and deeper than almost anyone predicted. The weeks after Chanukah and Christmas, stores were swollen with a glut of merchandise that had to be liquidated at deep discounts.
This year, retailers were careful to order a lot less from suppliers.
It was a gamble, because nobody wanted to find themselves without enough inventory on hand to meet demand.
For the most part, though, local stores said the gamble paid off.
Electronics and appliance store Urner's said it struck just the right balance with its appliances, neither selling out nor having to mark down large numbers of items at clearance sales.
On the electronics side, there's a lot more left on the floor, but that was by design, said marketing director David Perkins.
"We bulked up on the TV side because we wanted to have a good, strong inventory to get us through the Super Bowl because a lot of people buy big-screen TVs to watch the game," he said.
Bella at The Marketplace, a high-end clothing boutique, said it is pleased with how its season turned out, even though it was a little nerve wracking cutting it so close.
"I think pretty much every retailer that I know of didn't carry as much this year as last year," said owner Heidi Nicoll.. "We didn't have too much left over.
"The hardest thing about this year was normally you were able to reorder things from the suppliers if you ran out, but even the vendors were sold out. They were being pretty conservative."
Daniel Yale, 23, shops after-Christmas sales every year because his wife's birthday is New Year's Eve. He picked up a pair of boots for her Thursday at a Big Five Sporting Goods store in the northeast.
Stores still had a lot of selection, he said, "and prices are good, I think maybe because of the economy."
Ellie Jaye's, a downtown children's clothing and furniture boutique, said its sales doubled over last year, but that wasn't hard to do because last year the store was newly opened.
"This year people know us," said owner Jason Martin.
He said he ordered holiday merchandise strategically.
"We were careful not to get too much obviously seasonal stuff, because if it doesn't sell you have to store it for a year," he said.
Stores were smart to be cautious, said George Whalin of Retail Management Consultants in Carlsbad. He called assertions that the recession is over "nonsense. Political posturing. Wishful thinking."
With unemployment still high, "consumers have not started spending again, and until that happens, we are nowhere near getting through this," Whalin said.
But Mike Flament, senior vice president and economist with Wright Investors Service, said this holiday season was stronger than last year's.
"The stock market is up and consumer confidence is improved," he said. "it would be hard for consumer confidence to be worse than it was a year ago."
