CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM At Ward Warehouse, Hawaii Doggie Bakery & Gift Shop owner Jen Kanoe Kunishima helps Les Honda select some gifts.

Hawaii retailers upbeat
about holiday sales

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By Russ Lynch
rlynch@starbulletin.com

Heading into the third weekend of the big shopping season, island retailers are optimistic they will do well and to help ensure that they do, they are preparing an onslaught of advertising and promotions between now and Christmas.

"We're very optimistic," said Dwight Yoshimura, general manager in Hawaii for General Growth Properties Inc., owners of Ala Moana Center and Victoria Ward Ltd. "Next week there'll be some pretty big advertising," with sale prices and other attractions, he said, aimed at convincing those who haven't yet done their shopping to come out and get it done.

"If you have to segment the market, there's the early shopper and the last-minute shopper," Yoshimura said. This year there was a lot of early shopping, spurred on by some good discounts being offered by many retailers, he said.

CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM At Nohea Gallery in Ward Warehouse, Shelly Kelly (left) helps Gail Kaaialii with some prices.

A U.S. Commerce Department report yesterday said retail sales nationwide had the biggest gain in three months in November. A surge in spending on furniture and on electronics pushed up retail sales by 0.4 percent to $302.5 billion, according to the report.

In Hawaii, Ala Moana got an additional boost from the special JC Penney "going out of business" sales, Yoshimura said. J.C. Penney Co. has announced it will close all its Hawaii stores Jan. 10 and it has been offering discounts of 30 percent to 60 percent and more to get rid of its inventory.

"A lot of the value promotions by retailers have been good for us," Yoshimura said.

Sears has had a series of big promotions too, as have smaller retailers.

The stores in the Ward Centre and Ward Warehouse and the rest of the Victoria Ward complex have been reporting good business, he said.

Yoshimura said his optimistic outlook is based on what stores are experiencing now compared with two Christmases ago, recognizing that last year was just three months after the Sept. 11 atttacks.

Pearlridge Center management is "very, very optimistic" about the way this year is working out, said Scott Creel, marketing director. Creel said he doesn't yet have post-Thanksgiving figures but the mall has been running double-digit increases nearly every month and the rest of the year looks strong.

Sales at the JC Penney stores in the islands are "very strong," said Tim Lyons, a spokesman at J.C. Penney Co. corporate headquarters in Plano, Texas. "Obviously they are in the clearance mode," he said, as the stores prepare to close for good, and that brings in bargain hunters.

"While it's nice to see brisk business "for us it's not an ideal situation" because revenues are reduced by the mark-downs, Lyons said.

At Sears, Roebuck & Co., Hawaii business is strong, said Anne Hand, Hawaii district general manager. "We've been running pretty steady increases year-over-year," she said.

Last year, as part of the post-Sept. 11 recovery effort, Sears in Hawaii had all-store sales, such as 10 percent off everything in the store, Hand said, and that hasn't happened yet this year. It is coming, she said.

Meanwhile, Sears this week is advertising 15-20 percent off home appliances and television sets for this weekend, plus some red-tag sales offering even bigger discounts.

"We've had a couple of low Saturdays, but (other than Saturdays) every day since the day after Thanksgiving we've been ahead of last year," Hand said.

At Macy's, key Hawaii officials were tied up in trying to help typhoon recovery on Guam, where Macy's has a significant presence, and were not available for comment.

However, Bob Mettler, chairman and chief executive officer of Macy's West, said from his headquarters in San Francisco that sales in Hawaii are on target and going well.

"We're very pleased with our island business," Mettler said.

Macy's is advertising a one-day sale for tomorrow, with some specific prices lowered, coupons and special hours, 7 a.m. to midnight.

Retailers in general are reporting "increases, single-digit but increases," said Carol Pregill, president of the local industry trade association, Retail Merchants of Hawaii.

"Other than in some of the high-end luxury goods, I am hearing increases," Pregill said.

The higher-priced luxury items normally sell best after Christmas, particularly around New Year's when the number of Japanese tourists increases, she said. So it is no surprise that there is a bit of a lag behind the rest of the retail industry this year, she said.

"Last year we were cautiously optimistic" leading up to Christmas, Pregill said. "This year we're optimistic. Apparel sales are projected higher this year."

Actually, the last holiday season wasn't all that bad and this year is looking better, said Jonathan Kim, general manager of Windward Mall.

The first three days after Thanksgiving "were better than last year and that's great," Kim said. There are a few mall stores that aren't doing well, he said, but in informal chats this week, store managers "indicated their sales are up," Kim said.

One area where business is not yet strong is in sales of books and records, but that is normal, specialty retailers say.

"It is still early in the season," said Les Honda, area marketing manager for Borders Books & Music. "There's a lot of people coming in and business is brisk," but in his industry sales don't really pick up until much closer to Christmas.

"Most of our customers realize what we have in our store -- books, music and DVDs. It's not like we're a shopping center where they do a lot of browsing," he said.

Honda and other book and music sellers said people either plan all along to make some purchases in that field and leave those purchases until after they have made the buys that worry them more, or they know books and records make good last-minute, fall-back choices.

"It's pretty much always last-minute, in the last week or two weeks, and that trend is continuing this year," said Brian Aune, assistant store manager and Barnes & Noble Booksellers in the Kahala Mall.

This year DVDs are the big seller, said Roy Fukushima, general manager at Tower Records on Keeaumoku Street.

People who may not shop at Tower during the year do so at Christmas because music CDs and the DVDs make such good gifts, he said. Tower has a winner in its "new-release day" every Tuesday, when the latest releases are heavily discounted, and that is helping this season, he said.