Shoppers Take Their Pick (of Low-Hanging Fruit)

Deep discounts and early sales attracted hordes of shoppers over the Thanksgiving weekend, but holiday sales were tepid and traffic was lighter that hoped, according to several national reports.

Steep discounts drew shoppers but they were “heat-seeking missiles,” according to one analyst. Shoppers stuck to their lists, purchasing items on deep discount rather than splurging, indicating that frugality still reigns.

An estimated 195 million trekked to the mall and shopped online Thursday through Sunday, according to The National Retail Federation. That was up from 172 million shoppers last year. The average amount spent per shopper, however, shrunk almost 8 percent to $343.31.

“There is a glimmer of hope,” said J’Amy Owens, a Seattle retail analyst with the J’Amy Owens Group. “Some of the national numbers were positive compared to how dreadful everyone thought sales would be. The big discounters running these crazy wake-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night sales seem to have actually worked.”

“For the first time, the Gap group (Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic) were open on Thanksgiving Day,” said Patricia Johnson and Dick Outcalt, retail consultants with Outcalt & Johnson Retail Strategists LLC in Seattle. “Customers were buying.”

Traditionally, retailers have waited until the Friday after Thanksgiving to kick off the holiday season. But this year Sears started advertising Black Friday sales before Halloween. And other retailers, like the Gap group, tried to get a jump on what is considered one of the biggest holiday shopping days by opening on Thanksgiving Day. Next year Outcalt expects at least twice as many retailers will be open part or all of Thanksgiving Day.

That’s a trend Owens hopes does not take hold. “There has to be something sacred in America,” she said. “There should be days where consumers aren’t buying anything but food. I saw that as offensive, overreaching and desperate. You have to wonder what kind of culture a retailer has if it is asking its employees to work on Thanksgiving. What’s next – working on Christmas?”

Retailers that did see better-than-expected results impressed Outcalt and Johnson with their narrower assortments, deeper stocks and appealing price points. “They edited their selections very effectively, and had attentive, adequate staffing,” Johnson said. “The true merchants are re-emerging.”

Despite the weekend’s glimmer of hope, Owens said some retailers will be lost this year because the nation is still over-stored. “I still don’t think it’s going to be a record breaking Christmas,” she said. “It’s going to be more of a break-even Christmas.”

Related: Grinchless in Seattle: Retailers bank on “frugal fatigue” nad bank on a merrier Christmas.