Retailers expect less green this St. Patrick's Day

Last week, Deon Foster, owner of The Kitchen Koop in downtown Portsmouth, moved her small St. Patrick's Day display of Irish soda bread mix, cream coffee and tea from the center entrance of her store off to the right.

A table of Easter egg plates, bunny figurines and egg-coloring kits now sits in that spot.

"I don't want to confuse people," Foster said. "Their minds are boggled: 'Is it Easter or is it St. Patrick's Day?' "

Easter, being celebrated this year on March 23, hasn't fallen so early in the calendar since 1913, according to Heidi Stonehill, senior associate editor at The Old Farmer's Almanac, and based on Web reports won't come again this early for 220 more years. The date of Easter is tied to the season of the year and the phase of the moon, and generally falls on the Sunday after the first full moon of spring in the northern hemisphere.

St. Patrick's Day, observed on March 17, hasn't occurred during Holy Week since 1940, Stonehill said. The Holy Week is the sacred seven days that lead up to Easter Sunday.

This coincidence will likely put a dent in St. Patrick's Day holiday spending because of the timing issue, national retail experts say.

The National Retail Federation, a trade organization for retailers, projects that about $3.64 billion will be spent on the Irish holiday, compared to $3.76 billion last year. Spending for Easter is about four times as much. Consumers are expected to spend about $14.44 billion on Easter merchandise this year, up slightly from the calculated $14.37 billion spent last year.

The national retail group even has it down to the penny how much the average person is expected to spend on St. Patrick's Day - $35.04 vs. $34.89 in 2007. But it expects fewer people will celebrate this year, bringing total spending down.

Susan Milhoan, president and chief executive officer of Retail Alliance, said local retailers won't see a significant decline in business because of Holy Week, but there will be a compression of sales because the two holidays are so close.

"People will spend the same amount of money they would on Easter and St. Patrick's Day, but it will probably be blended together," said Milhoan, whose Hampton Roads-based organization represents local merchants. "But over the course of the two holidays, they think they'll make it up."

Some major local retailers are predicting a loss in sales.

During a recent conference call with retail analysts, Dollar Tree CEO Bob Sasser said customers tend to spend more money when Easter is later in the year because they have more time to shop more often.

Last year, Easter was on April 8.

"What you find is nobody is thinking about it yet," Sasser said last month. "It's the traffic associated with the Easter business that drives the sales in all the other categories.... And you're also subject to bad weather."

Kathleen Mallas, Dollar Tree's vice president and controller, said with Easter falling early in the calendar, Dollar Tree could lose an estimated $25 million in sales, compared with the first quarter of 2007. Last year, first-quarter sales for the Chesapeake-based national retailer were $975 million.

Small-business owner Foster said she's been careful when ordering holiday items because she doesn't have enough time to sell them. This year, she ordered two cases of carrot cakes. She normally orders three.

And with the weakening economy, customers have been watching their money and buying for one holiday, Foster observed.

"You're being cautious about your spending, and what you're going to celebrate," Foster said of consumers.

Other retailers, like Anita Meekins, co-owner of Beach Accents in Virginia Beach, said her business has been doing "pretty good" this Easter season. The compressed holidays won't really affect sales, she said.

"This time of year is slow anyway," said Meekins, whose Hilltop area shop has been in business for 24 years. "We have some slow days, and we have some fast days."

One shopper, Sara Revelle, recently drove from Ahoskie, N.C., to The Kitchen Koop. She walked up to the Easter display, picked up a bunny cookie cutter that sells for $1.95 and gasped. She really liked it to make cookies with her son but already had shopped for Easter.

Still, she left the store with jams, cheese straws, coffee and other food items that she plans on entertaining with during Easter.

"St. Patrick's Day is only one day, and I wouldn't invest in one day," Revelle said. "My Easter stuff can carry through."

Jennifer Jiggetts, (757) 446-2643, jennifer.jiggetts@pilotonline.com