By Ken Ige, Star-Bulletin
Shoppers eventually made their way to Ala Moana
Center and Hawaii's other retail hot spots late last
week, but overall it was a lackluster holiday season
for many shops throughout the state.

---

Discounts
help boost
isle stores

One survey shows a late surge
in buying but some local retailers
will be happy to break even

By Rob Perez
Star-Bulletin

Yvonne Antone was among the thousands of people who jammed Oahu's store aisles looking for post-Christmas bargains.

But like many others this holiday season, Antone said she was being especially budget-conscious, looking mostly for discounted merchandise.

"I don't have as much money as last year," said the Oahu teen-ager as she took a breather from shopping yesterday afternoon at Ala Moana Center, accompanied by her sister, Michelle Antone, and a friend, Tami Newcomer.

With a sluggish economy forcing people to curb their spending, many Hawaii retailers braced for mediocre sales results for the holiday season, though some discount stores seemed to buck the trend.

One indication that local retailers had a better-than-expected season was in purchases made by check.

TeleCheck Services Inc., the national check-monitoring company, today said Hawaii purchases by check-writing consumers Nov. 27 through Dec. 24 rose 2.6 percent compared with the year-earlier period. Nationally, same-store sales were up 2.5 percent, according to TeleCheck. Today's report indicates a late surge in buying locally since TeleCheck's previous report, issued last week and covering Nov. 27 through Dec. 20, showed Hawaii sales down 1.6 percent from the same period last year.

TeleCheck says check purchases account for about one third of retail spending across the country.

Given the state's anemic economy, many local retailers would be pleased if their sales rose at all, industry officials said.

If a retailer's December revenue dropped less than 10 percent from a year earlier, that would be considered good for this kind of economy, said Mathew Koenig, regional manager for Oahu's three Tower Records outlets.

Jan Berman, president of the Retail Merchants of Hawaii, said some retailers would be happy just to stay even with or slightly exceed last year's levels.

Merchants catering mostly to local residents seemed to fare the best, Berman said.

"The ones that are heavily tourist-oriented are still hurting a lot," she said.

Going into the holiday season, Koenig said he expected Tower's Oahu stores to slightly lag last year's December sales volume. But because people seemed to be more budget conscious this year, looking for inexpensive gifts like compact discs and videos, Tower will end the season up about 3 percent to 5 percent, Koenig said.

"I'm tickled pink," he said. "I was expecting a horror story again."

The trend of shoppers tightening their pocketbooks seemed to give a boost to discounters like Kmart Corp., which has six stores in Hawaii.

Kmart's regional office said the company had a successful holiday season locally, though it didn't disclose sales gains.

Among the merchandise that sold beyond Kmart's expectations in Hawaii: toys, cameras, live Christmas trees and locally made gold jewelry.

Nationally, merchants said the weekend's buying frenzy lifted sales, but few expected the post-holiday rush to make up for a disappointing season.

Especially troubled were department stores, which used big bargains to entice shoppers before and after Christmas but still failed to get the sales they needed to boost the bottom line.

"They just didn't get as many items sold per customer this year as opposed to last year," said Britt Beemer, who runs the consulting firm America's Research Group in Charleston, S.C.