Real Christmas

Here we are a week before Christmas — and we’re not even half done with our shopiing. In a survey released Wednesday, the National Retail Federation said the average person had completed just 46.7% of their holiday shopping by the second week of December.

That’s slightly less than the 47.1% completed by this time last year, according to the retail trade group, and the lowest percentage since 2004, when the average person had completed 46.3% of their shopping by the same point.

Nearly 42 million people (19.1%) had not even started their shopping as of late last week, while 8.6% of shoppers had completely finished.

The results are somewhat surprising given retailers’ claims this season that good merchandise would sell out quickly because of lower inventory levels.

Now, with just over a week left until Christmas, procrastinators could actually find some great deals, said Tracy Mullin, president of the retail federation.

“Retailers know the final lap counts the most and are planning to emphasize promotions and discounts to bring in last-minute shoppers,” she said. “As Christmas Day creeps closer, retailers will be ready for an influx of procrastinators, from those who are checking the final names off their list to millions who haven’t even started shopping.”

With many people shopping for bargains and convenience, discount stores and department stores can expect to see the most traffic in the coming days, the retail group said. More than a third of respondents (38%) said they would shop online.

The survey, which polled 9,929 consumers from Dec. 1-9, also found that fewer people have used credit cards as their preferred payment method this year. Popular shopping categories included apparel, books, CDs, DVDs, toys and gift cards.

Oh, we hate to be I-told-you-so’s. But I told you so.

Nintendo of America’s CEO was on MSNBC this week touting the lower price — and the fact that he has warehouses full of — Nintendo’s once mighty Wii.

Fils-Aime remained confident that Wii sales would pick up after its $50 price cut last month. “We lasted 34 months in the marketplace without having to cut the price,” he said. “The next group of consumers, we will get at this $199 price point, and we’ve already seen very strong results after just one week in the marketplace with $199.”

That’s code for “Come and get ‘em, folks!”.

Money is no object when you don’t have it, right?

Back in the day Sears published what they called their Christmas Wishbook. I used to dream I had won a lottery that allowed me to pick one item from every page for free and that a big truck would deliver it to my house. Gifts for everyone! I would spend hours flipping the pages, agonizing over what one item I would select.

So in this recessionary enviroment what’s an obsolete kid supposed to do? May we humbly suggest the Neiman Marcus Christmas Book for the unemployed, uninspired or flat out broke Christmas shopper. Some of the ridiculous items Neiman’s suggests are fit only for the pages of a catalogue. Take, for example, this dream gift:

That, my friends, is a cupcake car. No home can be without one…er, with one… and for $25k what else is on the road that is truly worthy of trading in for your clunker? I mean — really!

From $175 iPhone holders to $12,000 Michelle Brand Sustainable Chandeliers if you’ve got money to burn, Neiman has a bonfire waiting for you.

As for me, I studying it…one page at a time.

This year, Wal-Mart Stores Inc is supersizing its $10 holiday toy offering.

Last October, the world’s biggest retailer cut its prices and began selling 10 popular toys for $10 each in its U.S. Walmart stores to win sales from early bargain hunting holiday shoppers.

This year, the retailer has ramped up the program and is offering more than 100 toys, including Barbie dolls and board games, for $10 each, throughout the Christmas shopping season.

The $10 assortment includes newly introduced toys, such as certain Transformers action figures and a Play-Doh burger builder set, as well as existing items, such as Monopoly and Connect 4, whose prices have been cut 20 percent to 50 percent.

“What we learned from last holiday was that price mattered more than ever,” said Laura Phillips, the retailer’s vice president of toys.

That is expected to be the case again this year as the retailer surveyed shoppers and found the No. 1 priority for mothers this holiday season is finding gifts that fit their budget, Phillips said.

The year-end holiday season is a crucial one for U.S. retailers and can account for 25 percent to 40 percent of annual revenue. But last year’s holiday season marked the worst in nearly 40 years by some measures and early forecasts for the 2009 holiday season call for sales to be anywhere from up 2 percent to down 1 percent.

But Wal-Mart has been gaining market share amid the recession as shoppers seek out low prices on everything from food to paper towels to popular electronics.

Last year, Phillips said Wal-Mart sold out of its $10 toys because it underestimated how early its shoppers were in its stores, buying gifts for Christmas.

“About 70 percent of our Wal-Mart shoppers start their holiday toy shopping before Halloween and, in fact, about 20 percent finish by Halloween,” she said.

So Wal-Mart spent the past year working with toy makers, such as Mattel Inc and Hasbro Inc to develop new toys or cut prices on existing items so it could stock a much wider selection of $10 offerings this year.

It said the $10 toy offering is the first of several programs it will announce in the next 12 weeks leading up to Christmas “to bring added savings” to shoppers.

With Christmas just a few months away, Toys R Us Inc. is boosting its holiday lineup with hundreds of new toy shops.

The toy giant is expected to announce plans today to open about 350 Holiday Express toy locations throughout the country by early October in an effort to drive sales and grab market share from other toy sellers.

The expansion includes more than 80 pop-up stores in shopping centers nationwide and more than 260 toy shops within the company’s Babies R Us stores. The Wayne, N.J., retailer currently operates 847 Toys R Us and Babies R Us stores in the U.S.

Pop-up stores are temporary locations that are usually tied to a specific event, such as Halloween or the back-to-school season, and close after a few weeks or months. They have become more popular lately as prime retail spaces sit vacant during the recession.

The company said the Holiday Express shops would offer the “hottest gifts,” including dolls, action figures and educational toys, at “great values.”

“We’re aggressively expanding our toy-selling footprint to make Toys R Us more accessible than ever for busy shoppers this holiday season,” Chief Executive Jerry Storch said. “The foot traffic in these popular shopping destinations provides a considerable opportunity to assert our toy authority position, increase our brand penetration and drive incremental sales.”

The shops are scheduled to close in mid-January.

MJ was a gamer. He loved video games. At least that is what developers are saying in advance of an expected Christmas 2009 release of a new Michael Jackson game for the Xbox360 and PS3. Critics are lining up to bash the release as an opportunistic exploitation of the Jackson tragedy.

The game features the likeness and artistic talents of Jackson and has reportedly been under development for some time as part of the “This is It” concert tour.

Life isn’t exactly peachy in the world of retail but Christmas 2009 looks far less dismal than 2008. Consumers will be able to find bargains — and retailers themselves may just be a little busier.

Eastman Kodak today said in talking with their biggest customers orders look good for the Christmas season.

Chief Executive Antonio Perez said retailers the company deals with “believe Christmas will be much better than last Christmas.”

Kodak, like many other makers of consumer electronics, last year saw fourth-quarter sales fall 25% to 30% from the prior year. Mr. Perez, speaking to Wall Street Journal editors in New York, didn’t give a specific forecast.

He said retailers have been telling Kodak that they think the just completed second quarter “is the bottom” for the economic downturn. “We all expect the third quarter will be a little better,” he added.

Meanwhile, some retailers just can’t wait to get into the Christmas spirit. Kmart launched their Christmas Lane products this week online, complete with glitzy flash animation that will make you want to run out and build a snowman.

In other news from the world of “what you could be buying for Christmas 2009″ consider a new feature in cell phones to be called “projector phones“. Instead of watching video on a tiny handheld screen you could project that video on a wall for larger viewing — and it could be under your tree this year.

The must have electronic gizmo for 2009 will be much the same as it was in 2008: the Blu Ray high definition player. The difference between Christmas last year and Christmas yet to come will be an entry level price below $100 — thanks to the Chinese.

The Blu Ray Disc Association reports that in order to induce Chinese manufacturers to make the units they had to not only share the technology but also had to create a licensing format which would provide them the edge on the low end of the retail price scale.

These new low end players could be leading to the speculation surrounding Sony’s Playstation 3, which has been rumored for a while to be dropping it’s price by as much as $150 before the 2009 holiday season.

In a down economy, these fast moves in a hot format are sure to make Black Friday a more predictable event.

Christmas 2009 got off to a big bang in retailing as the singular hot channel of video gaming has charged with rumors that GameStop has been asked by Nintendo to save major shelf space for a new product release. While Nintendo isn’t saying anything many are hoping for a new release in their Zelda franchise.

There is also a lot of buzz over the potential reduced retail prices in popular game systems — with the Wii targeted now at $199 and the much-rumored reduction in Sony’s PS3 to $299 a possibility.

The nation’s retailers got a much-needed sales boost during Black Friday’s traditional shopathon as consumers, lured by deep discounts, spent nearly 3 percent more than they did last year.

Sales on the day after Thanksgiving rose to $10.6 billion, according to preliminary figures released Saturday by ShopperTrak RCT Corp., a Chicago-based research firm that tracks sales at more than 50,000 retail outlets.

Last year, shoppers spent about $10.3 billion on the day after Thanksgiving, dubbed Black Friday because it was historically the sales-packed day when retailers would become profitable for the year.

While it isn’t a predictor of overall holiday season sales, Black Friday is an important barometer of people’s willingness to spend during the holidays. Last year, it was the biggest sales generator of the season.

But experts caution that this year’s sales growth may be hard to sustain for the remainder of the holiday shopping season, which has 27 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas instead of the 32 last year.

Still, the sales boost was surprising in light of data showing shoppers are scaling back on discretionary spending because of a recession fueled by uncertainty related to turmoil in the world’s financial and credit markets.

“Under these circumstances, to start off the season in this fashion is truly amazing and is a testament to the resiliency of the American consumer, and undeniably proves a willingness to spend,” ShopperTrak co-founder Bill Martin said in a statement.

Across the country, sales in the South were up 3.4 percent from last year while they climbed 2.6 percent in the Northeast as shoppers began scouring store aisles at midnight hoping to snag the best selection on early morning specials.

Patty Saal, 60, of Mogadore, Ohio, began her Black Friday shopping at 5 a.m. when she and her daughters went to a Sam’s Club to purchase iPods.

“We’re doing fine,” she said.

Fifth grade teacher Daphna Stepen, 42, spent Black Friday hunting for deals inside Macy’s and at the Limited Too clothing store and headed out again on Saturday. The Chicago resident said she was surprised by the discounts as well as how many coupons she’d received from stores, which helped her save even more money on already marked-down items.

“You can get almost 40 percent off stuff if you work the coupons,” she said.

Separately on Saturday, J.C. Penney Co. Inc. said business was strong in its sites across the country as customers responded to sales. Some of the department store’s best sellers were smaller electronic gadgets and practical gifts, such as sweaters, boots, coats and luggage.

But the chain said it wouldn’t provide specific sales figures.

“In light of the challenging and volatile economic climate, and shifts in this year’s retail calendar, we don’t believe that reporting sales data for any one day (or weekend), including Black Friday, would provide a meaningful barometer of our business,” the Plano, Texas company said in a statement released Saturday afternoon.