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BY SUSAN ERLER
Times Business Writer | Wednesday, January 14, 2004 | (No comments posted.)
Local retailers saw holiday sales peak in the final days before Christmas, in a trend mirroring the nation.
"We had a lot of business on the last two days," said Joshua Halpern, co-owner of family run Albert's Jewelers in Highland.
Watches, gold jewelry, symbolic three-stone diamonds and -- for the very romantic -- engagement rings were tops among last-minute shoppers, many of them men, Halpern said.
"In general, they were buying in quantities -- not necessarily bigger pieces, but just more," said Halpern.
Holiday sales in 2003 topped the previous year's, despite the store's move 15 months ago from its long-time East Chicago location, Halpern said.
"It was a very strong Christmas," he said.
December sales rebounded at Westfield Shoppingtown Southlake in Hobart after a pre-holiday slump, mall manager Tim Geiges said.
"Sales were actually down in November, which was very shocking," he said.
Heaviest traffic at the mall was in the major department stores -- Carson, Pirie Scott, JC Penney, L.S. Ayers and Sears -- where 2003 holiday sales were up between 2 percent and 5 percent over last year, Geiges said.
Carol Fink, owner of European Toys and Gifts in Valparaiso, knew sales were up when the store ran out of holiday wrapping paper a few days before Christmas.
"We wrapped double the amount of presents," Fink said.
Ed Fields, manager of Simply Elegant in Crown Point, summed up the home interior and gift store's holiday season:
"This year took off a little slower but ended up a little bit better."
Nationwide retail sales for the 2003 holiday season increased by about 5.4 percent over the same period in 2002, according to the National Retail Sales Estimate released by ShopperTrak. The privately held retail tracking agency called the pre-Christmas shopping season uneven, opening strong the first weekend but falling off considerably during the next two weeks before rebounding.
Consumers may have been waiting out retailers, hoping for the deep discounting they'd seen in previous holiday shopping seasons, said Jason Milch of ShopperTrak.
But retailers were trying to break the trend.
"With the economy being better off, they made an effort to keep lower inventories and to not engage in deep discounting," Milch said.
Consumers trying to call their bluff sat back and waited, but eventually "had to go out and buy," he said.
Luxury retailers outpaced discounters nationwide, thanks to a stronger economy and promised tax cuts, said Richard Feinberg of Purdue University's Retail Institute.
Discounters, including Wal-Mart and Kmart, saw increases of about 4 percent, but didn't perform as well as they had in past holiday seasons.
"A lot of retailers had high expectations. But the ones that did really well were the luxury retailers," said Feinberg, naming Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue and others.
"The affluent customer, the customer who has money, is willing to spend it this year because they know they're going to get it back in a tax decrease," Feinberg said.
Susan Erler can be reached at serler@nwitimes.com or (219) 462-5151.
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