Snow slows Christmas shopping as retailers await final rush

White Christmas? For area retailers, it's a holiday nightmare.

The snowstorm that blanketed Southeast Missouri Tuesday night and Wednesday left area retailers wondering if their holiday sales would freeze.

"The only way it could be worse is if it keeps snowing and keeps people away on Christmas Eve too," said J.C. Penney Co. store manager Gary McDowell. "Any day close to Christmas is bad. Every day is like a huge Saturday. You just can't make it up."

Treacherous roads and cold temperatures kept many shoppers out of the stores Wednesday. Forecasts for more snow as retailers awaited the usual crush of last-minute shoppers raised more concerns.

"It's going to have an impact," said Sharon Ebersohl, manager of Famous Barr. "It's truly hard to tell how severe it's going to be."

McDowell said his store would have done five to six times as much business Wednesday if not for the snow. Ebersohl predicted that Famous would lose about half of its customers. Other retailers expected similar losses.

Both said the snowstorm couldn't have come at a worse time. The Thanksgiving-to-Christmas period, which accounts for 23 percent of annual retail sales, already began slowly this year, with high petroleum prices and a weak job market blamed for crimping spending, especially among lower-income earners.

And now this.

Dr. Bruce Domazlicky, a Southeast Missouri State University economist who directs the Center for Economic and Business Research, expects more people will shop today and Friday.

"A lot of those sales will just get shifted in time," he said. "If people aren't buying their gifts today, then they'll buy them tomorrow. So, in terms of lost sales, it may not be that much."

Domazlicky estimates overall sales will be about 3 percent higher than last year.

"That's not really gangbusters, it's not a big increase," he said. "But there's still a little uncertainty about jobs and things like that. People aren't quite ready to go out and run up any more debt."

According to the National Retail Federation, total holiday retail sales are projected at $219.9 billion.

But not everyone was having a blue Christmas shopping day Wednesday.

"We've had a lot of people here in a festive mood," said Charles McGinty of C.P. McGinty Jewelers in downtown Cape Girardeau. "I think it put people in the Christmas spirit and the mood to shop."

Most people were singing a different tune, however.

"It's having an adverse affect," said Darren Neader, assistant manager of Kmart in Cape Girardeau. "How could it not? If it hadn't snowed, we would have had quite a few more people here. We see a lot of last-minute shoppers. I keep telling people to shop earlier."

Neader said he knew it was especially difficult for the elderly to get out in such bad weather.

"Older people don't want to get out," Neader said. "They may end up staying out of stores all together and just giving cash."

Many retailers said that losses may be offset by people who crammed into stores on Tuesday, trying to shop before the storm hit.

"Sales were crazy Tuesday," said Jen Cecich, manager of Target. "People knew the store was coming and were trying to get done early. We've started out slow today, but we expect sales to pick up a little once roads get cleared off."

smoyers@semissourian.com

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