NEW YORK — Retailers in the Northeast were still digging out Monday as they assessed the sales lost from store closures forced by the record snowfall.
Federated Department Stores closed 102 of its units on Sunday, including 52 Macy’s stores, nine Bloomingdale’s and 41 Lord & Taylor stores — all of the L&T units in the region. According to a Federated spokesman, Macy’s East has 189 stores in the region and Bloomingdale’s, 36.
“It’s certainly significant when you close that many stores in one day,” the spokesman said. “What the impact is has yet to be seen.
Bloomingdale’s said its 59th Street flagship and stores in White Flint, Md., and McLean, Va., opened at their normal times on Sunday. The SoHo and 59th Street stores closed two hours early, at 5 p.m., while units in Willow Grove, Pa., and King of Prussia, Pa., had delayed openings. Meanwhile, Bloomingdale’s stores in White Plains, Garden City and Huntington, N.Y.; Wayne, Short Hills and Bridgewater, N.J., and Chestnut Hill, Mass., never opened on Sunday.
“We’re back in business today,” said Michael Gould, chairman and chief executive officer of Bloomingdale’s. “The snow was a little bump in the road. We have a long year ahead of us. Obviously it affected business. We had some good traffic in the 59th Street store.”
For the first time in many years, the Mall at Short Hills in New Jersey remained closed on a Sunday that wasn’t a holiday.
“We got 21 inches of snow at the mall,” said Mike McAvenue, general manager. “The storm lasted until 1 p.m. For safety reasons I had to stay closed. We are very well prepared today and the mall is packed. Right now it looks like the parking lot is 90 percent full. On a weekday it’s typically 70 percent. A lot of people may have taken the day off.”
With Valentine’s Day on Tuesday, McAvenue was predicting strong sales. “Saturday was very strong,” he said. “Hopefully there’s a lot of pent-up demand.” The lost business on Sunday represents a 10 percent loss for the week, he said. “Given the strength of Saturday, when we saw 15 to 20 percent more traffic, and today, which is 4 to 5 percent up over last year, it will probably net out to a 4 percent loss,” he said. “It’s not as bad as one might think.”
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New York City store owners whose staffers were able to report to work opened on Sunday and tried to take advantage of any intrepid shoppers braving the streets.
“We were one of the only stores that were open on Bleecker Street,” said Stacey Pecor, owner of Olive & Bette’s. “On Columbus Avenue, Banana Republic, Betsey Johnson and Intermix were closed. We went down to a skeleton staff.”
Pecor said business was down 50 percent over last year at three of Olive & Bette’s New York locations, while the Madison Avenue store saw a gain over last year.
Pecor estimated her business will take a 1 to 2 percent hit for the month as a result of the snowstorm. Commenting on the absurdity of the weekend, she said, “Saturday we were selling sundresses and Sunday we were selling Ugg boots and rain boots.”
The storm’s timing couldn’t have been good for jewelers, who were in the throes of Valentine’s Day sales. Zale’s Manhattan stores at 142 West 34th Street, 417 Fifth Avenue, 1187 Third Avenue and 415 Lexington Avenue were closed on Sunday. Tiffany & Co. didn’t close its doors Sunday, a spokeswoman said. She declined to comment on sales, saying the company releases its results quarterly.
Marcia Wilson, Daffy’s chairman and ceo, said the company kept its stores in New Jersey, Philadelphia and Long Island closed on Sunday. In Manhattan, the SoHo store was closed and the Wall Street unit opened with curtailed hours.
“It’s probably no more or less meaningful than all the warm weather we had that brought out more shoppers in January,” Wilson said of the storm. “At the end of the day it’s usually a wash in terms of weather. It would have had more impact were it closer to Christmas. I see it as a blip.”
Saks Fifth Avenue’s New York flagship was open and there were shoppers, a spokeswoman said. “A lot of people took advantage of the day to get personalized service,” she added. “Despite valiant attempts, all [other] stores in the metro-New York area were closed. Boston was open for an hour, then closed.” Other shuttered locations were Stamford and Greenwich, Conn.; Short Hills, N.J.; White Plains, South Hampton and Huntington Station, N.Y.
While many businesses appeared to be closed on Madison Avenue, Barneys New York was operating. However, the Manhasset, N.Y., and Chestnut Hill, Mass., stores did not open. Neither did the Chelsea location on 18th Street, but “it would have been closed anyway because we’re in the process of setting up for warehouse sales,” a spokeswoman said.
Stefani Greenfield, the owner of Scoop, was pragmatic. All five Manhattan stores opened Sunday, but units in Greenwich, Conn., Greenvale, and East Hampton, N.Y., were dark. “It doesn’t help,” she said. “Sunday is a huge day for business, especially in the Meatpacking District. But you can’t control the weather. Hopefully, people will have a little cabin fever and want to go shopping. I think we’ll catch up. If you’re going to be in retail you can’t kill yourself over the weather.”