The Buzz around Flip Flop Shops®
Local retailers hoping to have jolly holiday
Santa arrives early to try to jump-start business
by Ryn GargulinskiTucson Citizen - 11.17.2007
Santa Claus came to town this week, arriving at both Tucson Mall and Park Place with the hope of drawing kids, and presumably their shopping parents, to their stores.
Retailers nationwide have jump-started the season early this year out of fear that rising gas prices, depreciating home values and other economic woes will cut shoppers' spending later.
In Tucson, however, many shoppers interviewed this week said their holiday gift buying, which can top $3,000, would continue to fill Santa's fat sack.
But not yet.
"I'm waiting for Black Friday," said South Side shopper Mike Muise, 32, who has yet to begin his holiday gift buying. He was referring to the day after Thanksgiving, which has long been noted for dramatic sales.
His $500 gift budget goes mainly for toys for his four nephews, ages 5 to 16.
The kids' father, Bruce Fernandez, 34, who was with Muise at a South Side supermarket Thursday, had about half his shopping done, which he said will easily total $4,000 and consists of more stuff for his kids.
Despite troubling economic trends this year, both men said their holiday gift budgets will be bigger this year than last year.
"Bigger boys, bigger toys," Fernandez said.
"Remote control cars, electronics, video games," he recited. Neither was inclined to get a move on holiday gift buying just because a man in a red suit was already sitting at the malls.
"It makes me kind of sick," Fernandez said of Santa's early arrival. "It kind of puts a black eye on the whole situation."
The commercialism also disgusted another South Side shopper, Vincent Monares, 24.
"They need to stop the marketing of Christmas," he said.
Monares also waits for Black Friday sales to spend his gift budget cash, which has gone up in the past few years and now tops $500.
"I can afford more," he said of his increasing spending. Monares and girlfriend Michelle Ramirez, 22, do all their holiday shopping at Target.
"Whatever's on the list," Ramirez said of what they buy.
Target Corp. had a 4.1 percent increase in same-store sales in October while most other retailers' sales contributed to the slowest October pace since 1995, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers-UBS tally.
Wal-Mart reported only a 0.4 percent gain for October, lower than its projected 1.1 percent.
Some retailers reported sales declines, including Nordstrom, with a 2.4 percent drop; Macy's, a 1.5 percent decline; JCPenney, a 1.8 percent drop; and Gap Inc., an 8 percent decline.
With Dec. 25 about five weeks away, the retail industry is struggling with consumers' eroding confidence and a weakening sales trend amid mounting problems in the economy.
But several local Tucson retailers had a more positive position to report.
"October was better than last year," said shop owner Tana Kelch, "but it didn't feel like it. We must be getting better at what we do."
Kelch is going on her fifth year with Bohemia, 299 S. Park Ave., a shop that specializes in locally created arts and crafts.
Santa is not sitting in the back of the shop, but Kelch was working on a display of angels and rustic crosses.
"We don't offer sales like the big-box stores, but our stuff is way better,'' she said. "It's all unique."
Kelch did note the real action has yet to begin, with a large part of Bohemia's clientele - snowbirds and tourists - barely arriving.
Flip Flop Shops Inc. in Park Place also had an increase in October sales and expects to double its holiday sales over last year, said manager Daniel Danielsen.
He said flip flops, always a hot commodity in Tucson, sell well during the holidays, as well as during the store's "second Christmas," from April through June.
Danielsen was glad to have Santa at the mall starting this week because it gives parents more time to take their kids. Also, the "Santastic" display is a few yards from his shop.
"I get a lot of the business from people trying to see Santa," he said.
Santa's presence doesn't affect Danielsen's personal holiday shopping, which the father of five finishes months before Christmas, usually by February. "I'm very anal when it comes to a lot of stuff."
Rita Ranch resident Erin Moreno, 31, said she was surprised Santa arrived before Thanksgiving, but it had no bearing on her holiday shopping habits.
She was shopping with her mom, Char Yenny, 54, on the East Side on Thursday, but not for holiday gifts.
The bulk of her $500 holiday gift budget, which increases every year, is spent on toys or gift cards, since many family members live out of town.
Online is the only way Shannon Klump, 36, shops. The Willcox resident was in Tucson on Thursday for a few necessities, but she saves on gas by holiday shopping with a mouse.
"On some sites you have no tax or shipping," she said.
Klump's increasing gift budget, which stays below $1,000, has already been spent. She's been done with her holiday shopping since mid-October.
"Santa, I'm way ahead of you" is the only message she had for the man in red.
East Side resident Carmen Felix, 50, also does a lot of online shopping for its convenience.
Her $600 holiday gift budget also grows along with her four kids, ages 16 through 26. She has yet to finish her shopping.
She likes Santa in the malls before Thanksgiving.
"I think it's kind of nice," Felix said. "Just bring on the cheer a little earlier and get on with the celebration."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Santa coming before Thanksgiving may have started within the last half decade, but his arrival in stores dates back some 150 years.
Thousands of kids flocked to a Philadelphia shop that featured a life-size Santa Claus model in 1841, according to The History Channel Web site.
Other stores slowly caught on, offering "peeks" at a real live Santa, not unlike peeks at freaks in Coney Island.
The Salvation Army got bit by the Santa bug in the early 1890s, The History Channel said, when the charity organization needed to raise funds for its free Christmas meals for the needy.
Thus it dressed up unemployed men in Santa suits and sent them off into New York streets to solicit donations.
This evolved into the widespread Salvation Army Santas one sees ringing bells on many city sidewalks.
Holiday shopping ads came even earlier, The History Channel said.
Stores started them in 1820, with special holiday newspaper sections emerging by 1840.
Salvation Army gave a boost to Mr. Claus.
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