Retailers are hoping for more cha-ching, cheer this holiday season

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Judy Dugan and Elaine McCollam, both of Bettendorf, Iowa, browse the new Christmas Decor store in downtown Geneva. (Sandy Bressner – sbressner@kcchronicle.com)

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Michelle DeMarco can’t wait for Halloween to end and for her life to get a lot busier.

For the past few years, DeMarco – formerly of DuPage County and now of Geneva – has sought to grow a business centered on decorating other people’s homes for Christmas using her assortment of custom bows and garland.

But last year, DeMarco decided she needed a venue to show what she could do. And, taking her cue from the rash of Halloween-oriented stores that spring up throughout the region each fall, DeMarco opted to open a temporary, seasonal store selling nothing but Yuletide-oriented decor.

After running the store last holiday season in Bloomingdale, DeMarco moved to Geneva and decided this year that downtown Geneva was the right place, opening her store earlier this month inside a vacant storefront at 204 W. State St.

And, despite forecasts calling for a down year for retailers this holiday season, DeMarco believes her business will only get better.

“I don’t know what it is about Christmas, but there are a lot of people who just want to go all out,” DeMarco said. “People just love Christmas.”

Across the region and the country, a number of retailers share DeMarco’s hopes for the upcoming holiday season.

National surveys conducted by retail industry organizations, however, don’t back up such hopes.

This Halloween, for instance, the National Retail Federation believes spending will be down compared to last year. And the NRF also believes spending for the winter holidays will slip, as well.

Others are a little more optimistic. But only slightly.

Market research company The NPD Group, for instance, believes that holiday spending will actually increase in 2009 vs. 2008 by about 0.5 to 1.5 percent. But NPD notes that the number of people who plan to spend less this year has increased four percentage points to 30 percent from 26 percent of those surveyed in 2008.

In previous years, holiday retail had increased by as much as 5 percent each year.

The reality of the marketplace has led many retailers, including big names such as Toys R Us, to bring out of mothballs programs such as layaway to lure budget-conscious consumers who are leery of adding more credit debt this year.

In the Fox Valley, local retailers aren’t sure what to expect this coming holiday season.

Ron Brazener, owner of the Trade n Play video game store on Orchard Road in Aurora, said he is hoping for a big holiday season to erase some of the struggles of the past year for his one-year-old shop.

“We don’t know what’s coming, but we could sure use a big season,” he said.

And Tod Steele, owner of Assembly Line Toys on Third Street in Geneva, said 2009 has been difficult for him, as well.

But he said traffic through his store has increased in recent weeks, and his sales have already begun to pick up.

“We know there will always be a Christmas, with toys under the tree,” Steele said. “The question is, just how many toys, what kind of toys and will it be enough for those of us like me?”

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