Retail Xmas huge - read this: my faves ANF and BEBE. Also BBY and CPU:NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. retailers were still dripping with Yuletide cheer on Sunday as deep-pocketed shoppers crammed malls to extend a holiday gift-buying season that has already exceeded expectations.
``It's just jingle all the way,' said William Ford, senior economic advisor to TeleCheck Services Inc., a provider of checking services to retailers.
``If it's like the rest of the season, it probably will be the record year of the 1990s. It's just a perfect Christmas for retailers,' he added.
Ford said he expects same-store sales for the Christmas season, which he defined as the 29 days after Thanksgiving, to rise about 6 percent above the same period a year ago. Add another 1 percent for sales from stores that didn't exist last year and about 1.5 percent from retail sales over the Internet and total holiday season sales may increase by over 8 percent.
``This has been a truly remarkable story for the retail industry,' said Scott Krugman, spokesman for the National Retail Federation, an organization representing the full gamut of retailers from department stores, to online retailers, to mom-and-pop stores.
The federation expects the U.S. Department of Commerce to release figures next month showing that Americans spent about $184 billion during the November-December holiday season, about a 6.5-percent increase from 1998, Krugman said.
``I can't wait to see the final numbers,' he said.
The biggest reason for a season that may make retailers giddy is the economy -- low inflation, low unemployment, and strong consumer confidence.
The season accounts for about 25 percent of annual retail sales, and even more for some smaller stores.
Shoppers Sunday couldn't wait to get past the doors and spend the gift certificates they received for Christmas, or grab on-sale merchandise.
At Woodfield Mall, in the Chicago suburb of Schaumburg, Ill., more than 1,000 people went online the traditional way and cued up outside Marshall Field's for the department store's 6:30 a.m. opening.
Crate & Barrel at the same mall was forced to limit the amount of people in the store when the check-out line reached 150, said Karen Mac Donald, spokeswoman for Taubman Centers Inc (TCO.N), owner and operator of 28 shopping centers in 12 states.
Jim Roberts, regional marketing director for mall operator Simon Stores, said that mall traffic was up 13 percent in the 12 weeks before Christmas and that pace did not seem to wane after the holiday.
However, much of post Christmas traffic won't translate into sales.
``There are two aspects that won't add to sales,' Telecheck's Ford said. ``Swapping merchandise and cashing in on your gift certificates.'
Unlike last year, when warm weather nearly killed sales of winter apparel and forced retailers to offer big discounts on hats, gloves and winter coats that didn't move, retailers this year could be more miserly with their post-Christmas sales.
``What made Christmas so great is we had no disabling weather anywhere in the country,' Ford said. Additionally, although November's temperatures were above normal, December appeared on the scene with temperatures low enough to remind shoppers of winter.
Many stores advertised discounts running anywhere from 20 percent to 70 percent, but those big-sale discounts were on Christmas merchandise. The others were on selected merchandise.
At the Marley Station mall in Glen Bernie, Md., store operators said their inventory levels were light as shoppers bought out their winter stock, Mac Donald said. Store owners at The Mall at Tuttle Crossing in Columbus, Ohio, said Sunday's transactions broke down to about 25 percent returns and 75 percent purchases, Mac Donald said.
Although exact figures were not yet available, several shopping mall directors and other retailing experts said apparel and jewelry were among the big winners this season.
Christian Bernard, a jewelry store in Woodfield Mall, reported sales 22 percent high than last year and a last pre-Christmas rush on millennium cut diamonds that start at $7,500 a piece.
The New Year also may extend the post Christmas buying spree as party goers celebrate the coming of the year 2000 with gifts.
``Every economic indicator has been in a cosmic alignment this year,' said Krugman, the retail association spokesman.
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