Not keeping day-after tradition

It was a lukewarm shopping season for Newport Beach and Costa Mesa retailers, store owners said Wednesday, the day after Christmas, often considered the busiest shopping day of the year.

Customers said the housing market and high gas prices made them more thrifty, and experts predicted the economic storm clouds would linger.

“It’s been slower than usual, probably because of the economy,” said Jeanne English, manager of Home Holidays & Traditions at South Coast Plaza. “It’s just down for everything, it’s more noticeable this year. People are definitely looking for bargains.”

At South Coast Plaza, Jessica Treglia of Irvine said this year she shopped only for her kids and young cousins “because of gas and housing.”

English’s store opens only for the holiday shopping season from mid-November through the end of the year. This is the first year the store had discounted items before Christmas just to get shoppers in the door, she said.

Stores nationwide offered more discounts early and stayed open longer to aggressively combat the sputtering economy, said Eduardo Martinez, an economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, which also researches business trends in Orange County.

Across the nation sales were up 3% from last year, the smallest increase in several years, Martinez said.

“Most of it is consumer confidence,” much of it on whether people have lost their job or not, Martinez said. The ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles were noticeably less busy receiving inventory, a sign of retailers’ conservative expectations, he said.

At Triangle Square at Newport and Harbor boulevards, retailers repeatedly characterized their shopping season at best as “OK.”

“Compared to last year this was a really slow year,” said Susan Dorn, an employee at The Right Stuff, a store for baby items. Recent reports of toys imported from China that are harmful to babies didn’t help, she said.

“The economy is really slow right now because of the housing slump and all. Toys and fun stuff are probably the last things people are worried about,” Dorn said.

Orange County is particularly susceptible to the housing crisis because of a concentration of mortgage lender employees in Irvine and the city of Orange, Martinez said. But at Fashion Island in Newport Beach, it seemed to be business as usual this year.

Lula Halfacre, owner of Traditional Jewelry and Cam Kennedy, an employee at Garys Island clothing store, said their stores performed well over the holidays.

Men’s store Indigo Palms had its best one-day performance in four years Saturday, assistant manager Luciano Alvear said. Sales were down overall, but having Christmas close to the weekend made up some ground in the final-weekend rush, he said.

Most shoppers said their spending habits over the holidays did not change because of the economy, like Phil Watson of Riverside.

“I just wrote down a list and got everything I needed,” he said.

JOSEPH SERNA may be reached at (714) 966-4619 or at [email protected].