Cities from Philadelphia to Boston

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Retailers expecting to ring up sales on the day after Christmas may have to intensify discounts over the next two weeks after an East Coast snowstorm disrupted one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

Cities from Philadelphia to Boston may get the most snow of the season today, forcing consumers who had planned to shop to focus instead on getting home before returning to work tomorrow. Some stores in the southeastern U.S. weren’t able to open as early as planned today for doorbuster specials and may close early as snow made driving dangerous.

Spending may shift into January, denting growth after the International Council of Shopping Centers predicted that retail sales will rise 3.5 percent to 4 percent in 2010, the biggest increase in four years. The day after Christmas is one of the five busiest shopping days of the year, according to Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at NPD Group Inc., a research firm based in Port Washington, New York.

“It’s like throwing a party and nobody comes because the focus has gone from post-holiday shopping to post-holiday travel,” Cohen said in a telephone interview today. “Look for sales to be repeated by retailers. They’re going to be more aggressive. They’ve got to throw another party.”

It may take retailers two weeks to capture sales that would have occurred today, Cohen said. Shoppers will lose enthusiasm as the holiday season excitement wanes, he said.

The parking lot of a Sears Holdings Corp. store in Greensboro, North Carolina, signaled the slippery, slushy days ahead in the Northeast. Two cars were in the lot at 9:30 a.m. even though Sears, based in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, advertised early-bird discounts of up to 60 percent on clothing and 30 percent on refrigerators and washing machines.

‘Wife Wasn’t Happy’

“My wife wasn’t happy when I decided to come out,” said Michael Scarlett, shopping at Sears after three inches of snow had accumulated overnight. He planned to pick up an Android tablet computer he’d ordered online and return home.

At 10:30 a.m., the Apple Inc. store in Greensboro had 17 customers and 17 red-shirted employees, including four at the front window watching a yellow bulldozer push snow into a pile in the parking lot. At a Macy’s Inc. location, the cosmetics counters had no customers shortly before 11 a.m.

Up the East Coast, in Whitehall, Pennsylvania, shopper Camille Qualtere was surprised to find the Lehigh Valley Mall “deserted.”

“We thought, ‘Is the mall closed?’” said Qualtere, 54, who took her two daughters to return unwanted gifts and shop for discounted clothes at Cincinnati-based Macy’s before the storm started. “I didn’t hear about the snow because I was cooking all day yesterday. My daughter just told me about it.”

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New Snow Boots

Shopping at the same mall, Kris Kotsch bought a pair of snow boots to prepare for the storm. With no snow falling yet, the 42-year-old photography teacher went back inside armed with the gift cards she received for Christmas to look for a new mobile phone.

“I came for the boots,” Kotsch said. “Now I’m going to look for more.”

Consumers may temper their spending if the snowfall stalls shopping for several days and the frugality of New Year’s resolutions kick in, said Michael Dart, the San Francisco-based head of private equity at the New York consulting firm Kurt Salmon Associates.

“You’re moving into an environment where the consumer is going to be pulling back,” Dart said. “Retailers don’t want to lose too many of those shopping days. If it’s just today, it’s not a big deal. But the longer the weather remains bad, it becomes problematic for retailers.”

Wind Gusts

The snow is expected to persist into tomorrow as the storm moves along the coast, with wind gusts of as much as 50 miles per hour (80 kilometers per hour), AccuWeather said. The National Weather Service issued a blizzard warning through 6 p.m. tomorrow. Boston could see 12 to 16 inches of snowfall along with wind gusts of as much as 60 mph, starting tonight.

Temperatures for New York, Philadelphia and Washington are expected to dip into the 20-degree range tonight.

In Manhattan shortly before noon, 13 people waited in the checkout line at a Gap Inc. store, where cotton thermal long sleeved T-shirts were marked down to $10 from $22.50. Some items were selling at 80% off until noon and then half off for the rest of the day.

“I’m not concerned about the snow slowing us down,” said Janet Guillen, manager of the Gap store, which is near a subway stop. “People are still shopping,” she said, as the snowfall entered its second hour.

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