Isle stores’ holiday sales mixed

Sales growth was mixed for Hawaii retailers this holiday season, with some businesses experiencing a boost in revenue and others a decline from a year ago.

A surge in tourism added significantly to the bottom line for resort retailers and others catering to the visitor market. But local spending is still not up to levels seen in years past.

"This is not going to be the season to have broken all records," said Deborah Sharkey, spokeswoman for Pearlridge Center. "For some of our merchants it definitely was stronger, for others it was not. In certain ways the season was definitely quite different. Because we have merchants who started the holiday season as early as Thanksgiving Day, the season spread itself out."

U.S. holiday sales growth slowed by more than half this year after gridlock in Washington dampened consumers’ moods and Hurricane Sandy disrupted shopping, MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse said.

Retail sales edged up 0.7 percent from Oct. 28 through Dec. 24, the New York research firm said this week. It was the weakest holiday performance since 2008 when sales sharply declined, according to SpendingPulse.

Sales grew at a 2 percent pace in the same period a year ago.

Black Friday crept further into Thanksgiving Day as an increasing number of merchants sought to cash in on the overnight shopping frenzy. In addition, large national chains such as Macy’s and Toys R Us operated marathon, round-the-clock hours the weekend before Christmas, relieving much of the pressure from Christmas Eve shoppers, according to Pearlridge General Manager Fred Paine.

Sharkey said foot traffic was significantly heavier than the year before at the Toys R Us store in Pearlridge, largely due to the 24-hour marathon opening last weekend.

However, after-Christmas shopping was moderate and merchants weren’t "inundated with exchanges" like in years past, she added.

Revenue growth for Blue Hawaii Surf and Blue Hawaii Lifestyle’s five Hawaii stores was mixed, with one location up 40 percent in the month and another up just 15 percent, said owner Michael Zhang.

"For retailers, we have no choice (due to competition)," he said. "We have to lower the margin to get the sale. Overall we feel much better this year than last year. A couple years ago people were on a real (tight) budget. This year, no. You can see people have more confidence in the economy."

Overall sales at Martin & MacArthur were up more than 10 percent on average at its 11 stores statewide, Chief Executive Michael Tam said.

"It’s not huge, but it’s still up," he said. "People in Hawaii are similar to the rest of the country: There’s still a feeling of tension or uneasiness of where the future is going to be, especially with taxes, jobs or the economy. That’s affected people’s willingness to spend this Christmas season."

While there was no appreciable increase in spending from the kamaaina market, international visitors — with favorable exchange rates — still found it a good bargain to shop in Hawaii, he said.

In addition, online sales jumped more than 50 percent, due to strong out-of-state purchases, Tam added.

The same was true for tourist favorite Hilo Hattie, whose brick-and-mortar stores saw a 36 percent increase in sales while e-commerce sales soared 92 per­cent compared with last season due to a stronger visitor industry, said Chief Operating Officer Mark Storfer.

Shoppers, however, are still looking for bargains, but spending a little more per transaction.

"Anecdotally, visitors seem to have a greater propensity for spending in stores. The average transaction size is up 28 percent more in dollars," Storfer said. "Kamaaina … they’re clearly looking for bargains, but do have a lot of disposable income for shopping. Instead of buying one $40 aloha shirt, they’re buying five to seven $9.99 aloha shirts."

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Bloomberg News contributed to this report.