Newest Stores Were Holiday Favorites

Holiday retail sales brought good tidings for the new year to two newcomers to Southern California’s competitive retail industry.

Though final figures aren’t in, sales at Southland Bloomingdale’s stores and at the Mills Corp.’s Ontario Mills mall are exceeding the chains’ national averages, company officials say.

When Bloomie’s and Ontario Mills debuted here last November, they were like two big fish diving into a very big pond. After all, there were already more than a dozen outlet malls in the Southland before the Washington, D.C.-based Mills Corp. opened shop in the Inland Empire city of Ontario. And Bloomingdale’s faced stiff competition from established upscale retailers such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus when it opened its new stores in Century City, Sherman Oaks and Newport Beach.

Sales at most upscale chains have been strong regionally and nationally partly because many of their patrons have profited from the surging stock market. However, the Southland Bloomingdale’s are exceeding expectations because they offer moderately priced goods as well as a broad array of high-end merchandise, said Richard Giss, a Los Angeles-based partner in the retail services division of Deloitte & Touche.

By offering the upscale and the moderate, Bloomingdale’s is reaching a hybrid market formerly served by the independent Bullock’s and Robinson’s chains of the past. The Robinson’s chain merged with May Co. stores in 1993 and now operates as the moderate and mainstream Robinsons-May.

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And, Giss said, Bullock’s became more of a moderate-priced department store chain when it was acquired by R.H. Macy & Co. in 1988. The Bullock’s stores were converted to Macy’s earlier this year.

“Bloomingdale’s is simply reaching a dual market niche that has been underserved,” Giss said.

Like Bloomingdale’s, the Ontario Mills mall is succeeding by bridging a gap. The Mills project has clicked partly because it offers more discounted upscale merchandise than the traditional outlet mall, said Kent Digby, executive vice president of management and marketing for the Mills Corp.

For example, Off Fifth by Saks Fifth Avenue is among the high-end stores at Ontario Mills. The mall also has an Ann Taylor Loft, a Gap Outlet and the Beverly Hills-inspired Off Rodeo shopping corridor, which offers Bernini clothing and other upscale labels.

Digby said Ontario Mills is attracting about 100,000 shoppers per day. That’s about 4.5 million people for the mall’s 45 days of operation in 1996--as many as some malls attract in six months.

Merchants at Ontario Mills are also generating more sales per square foot than retailers at the other four highly successful Mills shopping centers in Virginia, Florida, Pennsylvania and Illinois, Digby said.

The Ontario mall is attracting extremely large numbers partly because it’s new and novel and because Southland retail sales are rebounding after years of prolonged recession in the region, said Ira Kalish, a retail economist at the Los Angeles office of Management Horizons, the retail consulting arm of Price Waterhouse.

However, Kalish said the two new retail operators will try to maintain their success by reaching a mix of markets.

“It’s a fight, and their competitors may have to make some adjustments,” he said. “The region was extremely competitive before and now it’s even more so.”

George White can be reached via fax at (213) 237-7837.

Wednesday: ENERGY