The Herald Business Journal


YOUR COUNTY.	YOUR BUSINESS JOURNAL.

Published December 2000

'Tis the
$EASON
TO $PEND
For malls, holidays are months in the making

By Kimberly Hilden
Herald Business Journal Assistant Editor

It’s the holiday season, a time for family, friends — and shopping.

Nationally, as much as 50 percent of retail sales can be generated in the last three months of the year, said Linda Johannes, General Manager of the Everett Mall.

Last year, Snohomish County consumers generated more than $1.1 billion in taxable retail-trade sales during the fourth quarter, according to the state Department of Revenue. More than $525.3 million of that included general merchandise, apparel and accessories, furniture and electronics equipment. That’s about a 32 percent increase from 1999 third quarter sales of $397.6 million.

This year, early industry reports nationwide have been mixed for October, with a number of the largest retailers experiencing slow sales but many specialty-apparel retailers enjoying healthy numbers.

The National Retail Federation and its Holiday Mood Survey partner, Deloitte & Touche LLP, estimate that holiday-season sales in the United States will increase by about 6 percent over 1999, which recorded $186 billion in retail sales, according to the NRF.

“Although confidence levels may not be as strong as they were earlier in the year, most consumer fundamentals remain healthy,” Irwin Cohen, co-Chairman of the Global Consumer Business Practice at Deloitte & Touche, said in a news release. “The holidays are too important to too many shoppers — we’re expecting another good year for retailers.”

Locally, the holiday season could be just as lucrative.

“Retail is very healthy in Snohomish County,” Johannes said. “There’s been a wonderful amount of growth in Smokey Point, Monroe, Mukilteo. And the healthier it is, the better it is for all of us.”

At Snohomish County’s two major malls — Everett and Alderwood — where there’s a combined 270 permanent retailers covering almost 2 million square feet, planning for the holidays begins early.

“Before the Christmas decor comes down, we’re already working on next year’s stuff,” said Rob Pittman, General Manager of the Alderwood Mall.

The Everett Mall works with a similar time frame, Johannes said.

“Christmas is an all-year process,” she said. “We pretty much, by the first of October, have Christmas for this year put to bed, which means all the promotions, (arranging) the arrival of Santa Claus, kids’ pictures with Santa, the Santa breakfast, all the advertising, the copy, the photos, the whole marketing plan, everything is done by October.”

The Alderwood Mall holiday marketing campaign, which began in the middle of November, runs through the 24th of this month, Marketing Director Beth Schooley said. Along with advertising, the mall planned promotional events to attract customers.

The Door Buster, for instance, focused on those shoppers who take to the stores the day after Thanksgiving, traditionally a bustling day for retail sales. On Nov. 24, the mall opened at 7 a.m., and the first 500 customers received a free gift bag, Schooley said.

At the Everett Mall, the marketing campaign is “big.” As in “big savings” and “big choices.”

“We’ve been using the ‘big’ theme for over a year,” Johannes said. “We used the ‘big’ theme last year for Christmas, and we will use it again this year. That way, our market becomes familiar with the signage, with the ads in the paper, with the radio and TV spots.”

Beginning in November, both malls spent days decorating for the arrival of Santa Claus.

“It’s a huge job,” Schooley said. “It takes about 400 man hours.”

Such a time-consuming job requires the decorations to go up before Thanksgiving, Johannes said, “but we wait as long as we possibly can.”

“I’m a Connie Consumer as well as a shopping manager,” she said. “I don’t like to see the holiday season rushed, and I don’t think our shoppers do. This is a very traditional market, and I respect the market’s need for tradition.”

Along with marketing and promotions, the malls line up temporary tenants for the holiday months: About 40 move into the walkways and corridors of the Alderwood Mall in Lynnwood, while the Everett Mall adds about 50 to its permanent 120.

“Some of those tenants have been with us ... 16 or 17 years, so our customers look forward to the returning temporary tenants (and) ... also the new ones, because this is where you find the unusual, the new, the trendy kind of merchandise,” Johannes said.

An increase in vendors, mall hours and shoppers requires the malls and their tenants to hire temporary help, but with the county unemployment rate hovering between 3.8 percent and 3.4 percent in recent months, that hasn’t been easy to do.

“The greatest challenge for the retailers is staffing up for the holidays,” Johannes said. “They’ll have the merchandise. They’ll have the latest bells and whistles, but will they have the people to man the cash registers? To handle the customer service, the stocking, the inventory, the visual merchandising?

“If you really want to see how many kinds of ‘Help Wanted’ signs there are, just walk through any shopping center in the Puget Sound area, and you will see every one of them, because they’re up in all the stores” she said.

The Bon Marche, which has stores at both malls, began the holiday hiring process in September and October, said Jack Arndt, Senior Vice President of Marketing for The Bon.

“We have the challenge like everybody else because of the low unemployment rate,” Arndt said. “We’re aggressive (in hiring). We do run ads; we do have signs in our stores; we have desks set up in our stores to hire people from time to time.”

Once the extra help has been hired, the decorations hung and the merchandise stocked, it’s show time for retailers, barring any unforeseen dilemmas.

“During the holiday season, especially, no two hours are ever the same,” said Johannes, who has been known to spend the night in her office when there’s the threat of snow, just to be there should snow plows need to be called in.

“I say I do my weather dance because I want brisk and clear, crisp skies so that people feel holiday (like), and maybe just a skiff of snow, but not enough to accumulate, not enough to create traffic problems. No floods,” she said. “I really want the ideal weather because we don’t want anything to keep people from being able to complete their holiday shopping.”

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