Current Event Essay

Stores plan for ho-ho-hum holidays -- and a semi-happy new year
{draw:frame} Another day, and another group of retail experts has forecast that this year's holiday shopping will get a C grade -- a so-so showing with extra points for effort. And that could be a taste of what shopping will be like in 2010.

Things are looking a little better than they did even a week ago, but overall the store displays will look lackluster this year, said the experts. Thanks to new technologies, retailers have become much better at managing inventory to get it just right and there are no must-haves this holiday season, so don't expect hand-to-hand combat for the last item on the shelf.
"There's plenty of nothing that you want to go around this year for holiday," said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst of market research firm NPD Group. But that's an opportunity for retailers to steer customers from one brand to another or one item to another, he said.

Shoppers are getting pulled in two directions, he said: On one hand, they are cutting back their gift lists, but they are spending as much or even a little bit more on those people still left on the gift list. And while they are experiencing "frugal fatigue," this year's gifts will lean towards the practical and classic, said Cohen. His research shows that books, music, movies and apparel will be popular this year.

Store traffic is growing stronger as the fall progresses, said Richard Hastings, consumer strategist at Global Hunter Securities. He estimated traffic at apparel and accessory stores was up 4.7 percent for the week ending Oct. 17 over the previous week, which was 2.8 percent above the week before.

Those numbers jibe with the weekly data just released by the International Council of Shopping Centers. It found sales for the week ending Oct. 25 were up 2.4 percent from the same time last year. Chief Economist Michael Niemira said he expects the full month's same-store sales to be flat over last year's...