As summery temperatures linger, area retailers are offering discounts to jump-start slow sales of winter clothes.
By JEFF HARRINGTON and MARK ALBRIGHT
Published November 11, 2003
[Times photo: Ken Helle]
Cody Cannon of Dunedin shops for winter clothes for her daughter, who lives in Chicago, at the Oldsmar Beall's grand opening. A cool front is expected to arrive in the bay area this week.
TAMPA - The thermometer was hovering at 80 degrees outside, but Kathy Gray had nothing but cool thoughts inside the Old Navy store at WestShore Plaza.
Seeing prices on winter clothes slashed as much as 40 percent, the Valrico shopper gravitated toward tables covered with long-sleeved sweaters and tops to start stockpiling gifts for Christmas.
"It's got to be cooler weather by then," Gray said. "At least I hope so."
The Tampa Bay area's prolonged summery weather may be appreciated by boaters and beachgoers, but for retailers trying to peddle winter clothes, it's been a November to forget so far.
Consider it a maxim of Florida retailing: If the temperatures stay up, the prices on winter clothes start falling sooner rather than later.
Typically, merchants wait until late November for mild markdowns and until after Christmas for the big sales.
Sale tags posted about the Old Navy store Monday told a different tale: cable-knit sweaters slashed from $32.50 to $22.50, Performance Fleece half-zip pullovers marked down from $26.50 to $17.50, "Blizzard-Buster" parkas cut from $49.50 to $37.12.
Elsewhere in the mall, at the Ann Taylor Loft, button-down sweaters were on sale for $16.99, down from $24 apiece.
"It's pretty clear there's going to be a lot of discounting of cold weather gear earlier in November this year," said Conrad Szymanski, president of Beall's Department Stores.
Slightly lower temperatures may be en route. A cool front expected to arrive later this week should drop temperatures early Friday and Saturday morning into the 60s or high 50s. Highs those days will be in the mid to high 70s.
Those temperatures are about average for this time of year but will seem cooler because temperatures have been unseasonably warm, said Ron Morales, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Ruskin. The long range forecast for the next couple of months also suggests a fairly normal winter.
In Florida, retailers stock cold weather gear such as heavy sweaters in quantity only until Christmas in fear they'll get stuck with it. While women typically buy before they need cold weather clothing, men and young adults don't until it's actually cold outside.
So retailers such as Dillard's and Burdines were checking the longterm weather forecasts Monday to see whether this extended warm fall will require that they start cutting prices deeper in their upcoming advertising.
It hasn't taken shoppers long to seize the bargains.
Ruth Izzo of Oldsmar picked out a "frost-free" parka at Old Navy for her son, lured by the $32 discount price, down from a $54 list price. The warm weather didn't faze her: the recipient of the gift has a winter ski trip planned to North Carolina.
And just in case there is only a brief cold snap in January, Izzo planned ahead. She bought an extra-large parka so her growing son will get a few seasons out of it.
Higher temperatures are not exclusively a Florida retail problem. Nationally, warmer-than-usual weather contributed to a tepid 3.2 percent increase in October retail sales, the slowest increase since June.
Same-store sales at Sears, Roebuck and Co. were down 2.7 percent; Abercrombie & Fitch sales were down 14 percent. Wal-Mart and Target posted increases of 4 percent and 4.5 percent, respectively, but they were aided by strong sales of Halloween candy and costumes.
Retailers aren't the only businesspeople who can't stand the heat.
Purveyors of home heating oil are waiting for customers seeking to fill up 55-gallon kerosene drums to heat their homes. "There is no demand because of the temperatures," said Aaron Evenson, general manager of Ward Oil in Tampa.
Ward, a family-owned operation, began 58 years ago by selling home heating oil exclusively.
The popularity of central air and heating in most homes took away many of its customers and forced it to change its business model. Today, home heating oil is a fraction of the oil distributor's business, mainly to customers in older woodframe houses and mobile homes.
Even that smaller group of customers has been silent this year. Evenson blames it on a trend toward cold weather arriving late.
"Ten, 15 years ago, it was a lot colder," he said. "We'd be out there in October ... the week before Halloween, we'd be out there hauling it."
Ann Riley, who operates Best Fuel Oil and Brandon Fuel Oil, remembers when November was the busiest month for home heating oil.
"It doesn't seem to get cold until later in the year (but) it stays cold later in the year," she said. "They say we're going to have a cold winter and I always look for that with our business."
