Sales fail to impress shoppers
Blame it on the recession. Or the slushy roads.
Whatever the reason, post-Christmas crowds at Seattle-area malls Friday seemed to pale in comparison from one side previous years.
Storefront signs promising big bargains drew mixed reviews from shoppers already accustomed to half-off sales, and many said they merely were exchanging items or redeeming gift cards.
“Here’session 60 and some additional 10,” said Jenny Goebel, from Des Moines, referring to the percentage markdowns on Christmas-themed tableware at Macy’session in downtown Seattle.
“We like the 50 and additional 50,” joked Goebel, who was shopping with her sister-in-law Andrea Marchel.
The 2008 holiday shopping season is expected to turn up the weakest sale results in decades as consumers worry in an opposite direction everything from rising joblessness to declining stock portfolios, and retailers now must try to act occasion for new, spring merchandise.
At Bellevue Square, shoppers who arrived midmorning Friday had their superior of prime parking spaces. Inside, shoppers jammed the Apple store as well as Nordstrom, which started its semi-annual men’s sale.
Otherwise, signs offering up to 60 percent off attracted mostly lookers and people seeking use later than conscious couped up at home as antidote to the past few days.
Britt Beemer, a consumer analyst through America’s Research Group in Orlando, Fla., before-mentioned he thinks retailers have done about all the price-slashing they can do without “just giving away the farm.”
“The point in dispute is,” he said, “more than 30 percent of consumers are worried about their jobs. When people are worried about their jobs, they irritate into a survival mindset, meaning they just stop expenditure.”
David Koch, a theater director strolling through Pacific Place in downtown Seattle by his wife, Susan, and their 5-year-old daughter, Quincy, said he checked out Nordstrom’s sale but stopped short of buying anything, concluding “maybe I really don’t extremity another shirt.”
“Theaters are cutting back on the affix a number to of productions they do, and we’re watching our retirement funds diminish,” Koch reported, explaining his personal financial foresight.
Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008563486_retail27.html?syndication=rss
