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Holiday sales make retailers smile: Most stores predict pre-Christmas haul will surpass 1999 figures

Frank Armstrong
Whig-Standard Staff Writer
The Kingston Whig-Standard
from December 23, 2000

While retailers across Canada and the U.S. are reporting slower pre-Christmas trade than last year, Kingston shoppers appear to be bucking the North American trend.

"We had anticipated it would be a little slower ... but we're going to have a big-time increase," Dave Boone, manager of the city's Sears department store, said yesterday.

Boone was one of several local merchant who, when contacted by The Whig-Standard, said their December sales estimates are above last year's.

Battling a cooling economy, a slowdown in consumer spending and frigid and blizzardy weather, retailers in the U.S. and Canada have seen, or expect to see, an ebb in holiday sales growth.

Many are hoping that having an extra weekend for pre-Christmas shopping - Christmas fell on a Saturday last year - will help lagging trade.

U.S. industry forecasts estimate holiday retail sales growth between 2.5 and five per cent, compared to last year's rate of seven per cent, while the Retail Council of Canada predicts sales increases of three to four per cent, about half the sales growth of last year.

"We had planned on being down and that this [weekend] would make us catch up, but we're even with last year even without this, and this is going to put us over the top," Boone said.

Inger Sparring, president of the Fancy That Group, which owns three women's shops in Kingston and Brockville, said her two Princess Street clothing stores are experiencing sales figures about 25 per cent higher than last December. She also said Christmas shoppers hit her stores weeks earlier than usual.

"I think we have Mother Nature to thank for being busy this year, because it's colder," she said.

Sparring has read the news reports about slowing retail trade and some of her suppliers tell her their Toronto mall clients aren't too happy with this season's sales figures.

Statistics Canada reported Monday that retail figures dropped 0.9 per cent in October, following a fairly flat performance in August and September.

Sparring hopes the weakening retail picture doesn't leak into Kingston.

At S&R Department Store, merchandise manager Larry McAlpine is pulling out all the stops to make sure that doesn't happen there.

"We've been doing better than last year in the last 10 days, maybe because we're a discount department store," said McAlpine.

"We're finding a lot of customers are looking for deals, so they are shopping for bargains," he said.

"If you can give them that, you can get their business."

In retail almost 40 years, McAlpine said he is using all his tricks of the trade to keep people shopping in the face of a tightening economy.

S & R, which prides itself on great customer service, has put its staff through new training programs and introduced some promotional incentives.

Keeping in mind the high price of gasoline and complaints about the lack of downtown parking, the store made a point of mentioning in all its advertisements that it has in-store parking and provides shoppers with free parking stamps for municipal lots. Last week, S&R also gave away $5 gas coupons with every $50 purchase.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which reported U.S. sales below forecasts, said it has been doing fine in Kingston.

"Sales are even a little better than last year," said store manager Bob Garrah.

Like a few other local stores, Wal-Mart was hit hard on the bad weather days earlier this month, but Garrah expects those slacker times will be made up for this extra shopping weekend.

Even if retails sales do dip in Kingston, he expects trade at the Wal-Mart store to remain constant.

"Traditionally, when times are tough, Wal-Mart usually seems to do better just because ... your dollar supposedly goes farther here," Garrah said.

Across town, on Princess Street, Trailhead outdoor store was struggling to take care of a queue 12 customers deep.

"We had quite a banner year last year and expect to finish slightly ahead," said manager Paul Copland, who said his store has been busy with holiday shoppers for the past two weeks.

He doesn't believe it matters that there's an extra weekend this year before the holidays begin.

"People know how many days there are before Christmas," Copland said.