Stores Seize on Minor Holidays for Push Out of the Doldrums

President’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day aren’t major celebrations for most people, but for retailers trying to pry an extra dollar from the consumer’s wallet they are “events” around which an enticing window display, a special sale or a promotion can be planned.

That’s why many retailers at the Promenade Mall in Woodland Hills had already put up their St. Patrick’s Day displays Monday, even as they were concluding their President’s Day sales.

Major holidays, such as Christmas and Easter, mean automatic sales increases for merchants. But during the lean times--a few months after Christmas or late summer--retailers must become creative in luring shoppers.

Event, Holiday Tie-Ins

“Most small retailers depend on holiday and event tie-ins for sales,” said Robert Bearson, a Long Beach management consultant on marketing strategies. “I think it is very clever of stores to have sales between the two Presidents’ birthdays. Most people have at least one or two days off and have more time to shop.”

The strategy used by the merchants and marketing directors of the Promenade Mall is fairly typical of how retailers in a mall setting use a holiday as a theme around which to plan a sale or special attraction.

In the trade, the Promenade is known as an adult mall. There are no video arcades or movie theaters and there isn’t an overabundance of fast-food restaurants to attract teen-agers, who hang out in large numbers at some other shopping malls in the San Fernando Valley.

The stores anchoring the mall--Robinson’s, Saks Fifth Avenue and Bullocks Wilshire--offer merchandise at the upper end of the price spectrum. The mall also has more than 80 smaller stores that cater to the well-heeled.

Advertising Push

Saks, Bullocks Wilshire and Robinson’s spent a lot of money advertising their President’s Day sales. In the stores themselves, however, the tie-in to President’s Day was more in keeping with their upscale image. The tie-in consisted mostly of a discreet sign here or there signaling a “President’s Day” handbag or shoe sale.

Making sure that it covered all possible holidays, Robinson’s had a sign outside an entrance asking customers to “Celebrate the Chinese New Year” at the store’s Oriental rug sale.

If the major stores were low-key in using the holiday event as an in-store sales tool, the mall management took a more aggressive approach.

Along the mall’s major arteries were displays of the White House china collection, pictures and short biographies of all 40 Presidents and photographs of former First Ladies in evening gowns. There was even a display of three outfits First Lady Nancy Reagan donated to Los Angeles’ Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising.

“Smaller events like photograph displays and art exhibits make shoppers linger in the mall,” said Richard Lyon, whose Encino public relations firm has worked with several Southern California malls. “They stroll around the exhibit, chance upon a store they had no intention of going into, walk in, and, bingo, the merchant has an impulse sale.”

There was no pattern evident among the smaller Promenade merchants, with some capitalizing on the holiday and others ignoring it.

No Link to Holiday

Pottery Barn was featuring a sale, but there was no link with Monday’s holiday. However, at Party Time, a paper goods and greeting card store on the second level, manager Etheline Dyck and her staff had finished taking down the Valentine’s Day displays. At the front of the store was a red, white and blue President’s Day display featuring red paper plates, stovepipe hat centerpieces and American flags. To the left were green cards and decorations for the next “event,” St. Patrick’s Day on March 17.

“President’s Day isn’t as big as, let’s say, a Valentine’s Day, but it is important to remind the customer of the holiday,” Dyck said. “In this business, you have to always have some kind of tie-in.”

At the Footlocker, store manager Angelo Ariondo said the companywide President’s Day sale that featured a 10% discount on all merchandise was more of a public relations tool, “a show of good will,” than a sales-boosting technique.

“On a (three-day) weekend like this, our business usually increases somewhere between 10% to 30%, even without the sale,” Ariondo said. “Kids are out of school, so they come in with their parents. A lot of people have the day off, so they have more time to shop.”

Love Theme

Mary Logan, manager of Vogue Alley, said her store window featuring fashionably dressed mannequins with little red hearts suspended behind them was designed around the theme of “love” so it could stay up for about two weeks after Valentine’s Day. But Logan was another retailer who wasn’t going to miss a chance to tie-in with the holiday. Besides the love theme, there was a sign in the doorway announcing the store’s President’s Day sale.

“The sale is mainly to move the last of the winter and fall clothes and to get people in to see the first of the spring lines,” Logan said.

Many of the Promenade merchants talked with optimism about the new styles for spring and event tie-ins they were planning for St. Patrick’s Day and Easter, but most said the next major event tie-in will be for Mother’s Day on May 12.

“Mother’s Day has become one of the most important sales events in the year for retailers,” said consultant Bearson. “Mom leaves Dad in the dust when it comes to what is spent on their respective days.”