Northwest Houston retailers report mixed holiday sales

Northwest Houston retailers report mixed holiday sales

By Josef Molnar Tuesday, 15 December 2009

Local stores see changes in seasonal shopping habits

HOUSTON — As Cy-Fair area residents count the days till the holiday season, they are making lists and checking them twice to ensure they truly need that high-priced item.

Following a national trend of financial belt-tightening, local businesses are seeing a decrease in overall sales heading into the holiday season. While tax revenue data for the Houston area lags by several months and will not be determined until next year, the Texas Comptroller’s office reports first-quarter taxes dropped by $15 billion this year to $81 billion from $96 billion in 2008.

Some businesses are benefiting from the drop in sales of their competitors. Lower-priced clothing retailers TJX, which owns TJ Maxx and Marshalls, and Ross saw a 13 percent increase in store sales in October 2009 from the same time last year, while American Eagle Outfitters and Abercrombie & Fitch have reported a five percent sales drop.

Local businesses

Some local businesses are profiting from the same trends. Angelica Ramirez, a photographer at Star Shots in Willowbrook Mall, said the recent closure of its higher-priced competitor, Glamour Shots, has helped the store to meet its daily goals, although not by as much as before.

“Last year was a lot busier than this year, especially during Christmas time,” she said. “The prices are the same, but last year people doubled up on extra pictures and packages.”

Ramirez said the photo packages people order have changed as well.

“They haven’t really done the group photos. Most of it has been graduation photos and babies, and not as much about families,” she said.

Like many retailers, Star Shots brings in the majority of its business during the fall and winter holiday period, and she hopes their estimates are accurate.

“This year we’re expecting about a thousand people [through the end of the year],” she said. “Last year it was probably double that, but we’re hoping for more around Christmas time.”

Shopping

Lori Kasmarcik, a local resident and shopper, saw a lot of foot traffic at Willowbrook Mall on a weekday in November, although few were buying.

“Shopping last year was crazy,” she said. “They were heavily shopping last year; [this year] there is a difference,” Kasmarcik said. “Although it hasn’t affected me, there’s definitely an impact, as far as the economy is concerned.”

However, she said one benefit of the reduced buying is a better selection of products.

“There [are] a lot more choices than there normally [are], and I think it’s because people aren’t buying as much,” she said.

Down economy

While Kasmarcik said her husband, David, who works for an auto part retailer, has been unaffected by the down economy, that is not the case with thousands of Houstonians.

Of the 240,000 unemployed people in the Houston area, many are new transplants to the area in search of more work than is available elsewhere in the country. According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Houston area’s unemployment rate is 8.5 percent, which is slightly above the state’s rate of 8.3 percent. As high as that number may be for the Houston area, which has typically enjoyed strong employment, it is almost 2 percentage points lower than the national average of 10.2 percent.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the third quarter showed a healthy increase in the country’s output of 3.5 percent after a year and a half of negative growth, although businesses are wary of hiring too soon.

Despite the trends with some retailers, Rita Ferguson said her store, II Friends Gifts on Barker Cypress, is performing well this year.

“We are most definitely doing well,” she said. “The traffic is not down; our sales may be flat, but they’re not bad at all.”

She expects the trend to continue and is anticipating a strong holiday sales period.

“I don’t know what the holidays are going to be like, but I’m expecting good results,” she said. “We did our annual Christmas open house [in mid-November], and it was better than last year.”

She pointed to II Friends Gifts’ good customer service, loyal customer base and wide selection of gift items, jewelry and home decorations as the secret to her store’s success.

“We try very hard to stay in tune with what our customer needs and wants, and we feel like if someone has the time, we will show them around, and most of the time they’ll find something,” she said.