California Apparel News

The receipts are still being tallied, but the city of Los Angeles’ first “Shop LA County” campaign has most malls eager for the next event.

Led by Los Angeles Mayor Jim Hahn, the five-day drive held Jan. 17–21—over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday—helped a number of malls and retailers boost sales and traffic 8 percent to 25 percent for the period compared to last year.

Those early results (concrete data isn’t available) have city officials checking their calendars for the time to stage a shopping sequel.

“This weekend occurred in a better economic climate last year, but despite the downturn in the economy, we were able to register increases this year,” said Joy Chen, the mayor’s director of economic recovery. “Based on the turnout, we’re thinking about reprising [Shop LA County] for July 4th and for next January.”

Out of 50 malls in the county that were approached for the campaign, a total of 19 malls participated, including Sherman Oaks Fashion Square, Galleria at South Bay, six from Santa Monica, Calif.-based mall owner the Macerich Co., and seven from Los Angeles-based Westfield America Inc. Each mall ponied up $3,000 to benefit from the program’s total advertising budget of $57,000, which provided for 30,000 rack cards stationed at concierge desks, print ads, radio spots and public service announcements. Those mall merchants that participated and offered discounts received window decals.

Most retailers and mall operators welcomed the chance to piggyback on the collective publicity effort to encourage patrons to return to the pastime of recreational shopping.

“The mayor put together a strong PR campaign, which was far better than one mall shouting into the wind,” said Deborah Flattery, Westfield’s Los Angeles regional customer service and marketing director, noting the timeliness of the event. “We already have stuff on clearancehellip;so this program just advanced something already in place.”

The campaign’s small budget, however, restricted the effective scope of its message, say some analysts.

“There’s a limit to how much you can do with that [budget],” said Richard Giss, a partner in the consumer practice at Deloitte & Touche. They’re promoting Shop LA, which is wonderful, but where else are people living here going to shop?”

Still, a number of merchants benefited from the ads as well as the ensuing stories that hit TV screens.

“People started calling on the first day about items that were highlighted on television stories,” said Michael Roqueni, store manager at Wilson’s Leather in Westside Pavilion in Los Angeles.

At the two-month-old Hollywood & Highland shopping center, traffic grew by 10 percent and sales rose 19 percent compared to other weekends, said Brian Chuan, who oversaw the Shop LA venture. He said 24 stores—including Ann Taylor Loft, Gap, Banana Republic, and Tommy Hilfiger—participated in the event.

“We were definitely pleased with the event, which exceeded our sales and traffic goals. We’d certainly participate again,” he said.

According to Phil Vise, Macerich’s regional vice president of marketing, around 75 percent of merchants who responded to a survey regarding the program said sales had increased during the drive compared to the same time period last year.

Other malls posted mixed results.

Macerich-owned Santa Monica Place said it experienced an 8 percent increase in sales but an 8 percent decline in traffic. Michelle Malynn, the mall’s marketing manager, was upbeat about the results, due to the shopper falloff that’s occured since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.

“Traffic has been down 12 percent, so we think this event helped boost sales and traffic for the period,” she said.

Malynn added that apparel stores showed strong results, including Arden B. and the Limited, which did “exceptionally well.”

Some mall operators credited the program with bringing in new customers.

“We saw a non-traditional shopper for the first time—those who may shop off-price retailers visited the center and got deals they normally would find at the discounter,” said Flattery, adding that sales grew by 11 percent at the Westfield Shoppingtown stable of centers—Topanga, Promenade, Fox Hills, Santa Anita, Eagle Rock and West Covina.

Shana Yao, marketing director for Sherman Oaks Fashion Square, said sales and traffic figures for the mall weren’t available, but retailers had mentioned brisk sales in home furnishings, cosmetics, beauty products and apparel.

“This was definitely a worthwhile investment for us,” Yao said.

Coming off a tough but better-than-expected holiday season, retailers say they welcome programs like Shop LA to get through the economic crunch of 2002.

“I’m the first to say that this will be a challenging year, and we’d like to do anything we can to help retailers,” Yao said. —Nola Sarkisian-Miller