Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 4, 1992 TAG: 9201040080
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY BUSINESS WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
CHRISTMAS MOSTLY MERRY FOR RETAILERS IN ROANOKE
Art gallery owner Andy Williams has been having mood swings since Thanksgiving. He was exuberant about pre-December sales, morose about mid-December sales.Now that it's all over, he said Friday, his mood has stabilized and he's happy.
"Not bad," Williams said of holiday sales. "For the year, I'm ahead about 10 percent."
He said his Gallery 3 on Roanoke's City Market had a 70 percent-plus increase in the sales of fine art owned by the gallery, but sales of consignment items dropped by 50 percent from last December.
Williams said most consignment pieces are bought by corporations, and companies haven't been as concerned with art this year. The December 1990 figures were an especially tough act to follow because they included a $25,000 corporate sale.
There was no such animal last month, but the gallery made up the difference and beat the previous December.
Sales were especially strong in the last three shopping days before Christmas, and weren't bad the remainder of Christmas week.
Other Roanoke Valley retailers had good reports of holiday business.
Ram's Head Books at Towers Shopping Center; Kirkland's, a gift shop at Valley View Mall; and Cardinal Bike Shop on U.S. 460 East all reported increases last month over December 1990.
"Most books that were supposed to sell, like `Scarlett,' did sell," said Lolly Rosemond, an owner of Ram's Head. She said sales of "Virginia Folk Legends" and a book on Virginia's trout streams have been so good they're out of stock and on order.
"The whole month of December was good for us," said Rosemond. "Things have also gone well after the holidays."
Rosemond said most of the other merchants at the Southwest Roanoke shopping center also had "a good season."
Scott Leweke, owner of Cardinal Bike Shop, said he ended the year 20 percent ahead of 1990 and with the best year he's had in the 14 the shop has been operating.
He said a lot of sales were related to the exercise trend among people in their 30s and 40s.
"I had some people say that since they couldn't afford a car or a house, they were buying bikes," said Leweke. He said others mentioned that bike purchases were an alternative to a vacation.
Jeanne Eberhardt, manager of Kirkland's, said the store's strong supply of medium-priced items drew budget-conscious shoppers.
"We had a very good year. It was absolutely wonderful . . . over projection," Eberhardt said.
One of the toughest times in the season was had by Siefert's La Vogue, a Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based women's apparel retailer, which announced in October that its local outlets were closing. However, sales were good after the merchandise was marked 50 percent off, said John Krueger, a Los Angeles consultant hired to liquidate the merchandise.
Prices have since been marked down further. Plans are to have everything sold so the store can close by Jan. 11.
Krueger said there's a possibility that La Vogue might reopen at a Valley View location. The consultant said he wasn't privy to details on why Siefert's closed its Mark Henri and La Vogue shops in Roanoke and Lynchburg, but he suspects it was economy-related.
Krueger said small shops have to do large volumes of business to meet the rents in regional malls. Some chains are scaling back by cutting less-profitable stores, he said.
The general manager of Tanglewood Mall, which has two vacancies because of Siefert's closing, said another mall tenant may relocate to one of the Siefert spots.
Judy Tullius also said figures coming from tenants indicate that some stores had a "fantastic" season and some "not so good."
"I expect it will be a wash from last year . . . maybe slightly up," she said.