East Coast storm freezes out holiday shoppers

The snowstorm that blanketed the East Coast, closing malls and snowing in shoppers, spelled trouble for retailers, but elsewhere in the country stores saw a strong turnout on the last weekend before Christmas.

Eager to win business from snowed-in easterners, retail Web sites including Macy's and J.C. Penney offered free express shipping Sunday. Traffic to retail Web sites spiked all weekend. Elsewhere, crowds looking for discounts found some, but far less than the 60 to 70 percent off sales they wanted.

Residents throughout the mid-Atlantic and Northeast mostly holed up for the weekend, then dug out from as much as 2 feet of snow from a storm that stranded hundreds of motorists in Virginia and knocked out power to thousands. Buses, subways and trains were delayed — including a Long Island Rail Road train stalled for more than five hours before backing up and unloading passengers.

Northeast airports that were jammed Saturday were working their way back to normal. At Boston's Logan airport, where it was still snowing Sunday morning, spokesman Phil Orlandella said flights have been "on and off." Monday looked to be normal, he said.

In Washington, meanwhile, police investigated why a plainclothes officer drew a gun during a snowball fight organized on Twitter. Witness Lacy MacAuley told The Washington Post the fight was harmless fun until the officer arrived.

A snowstorm the Saturday before Christmas, often the busiest shopping day of the year, is about as bad as it gets for retailers, said Marshal Cohen, chief retail industry analyst at market researcher NPD Group. But there's still time, and consumers are ready when they dig out.

"They'll hit the stores with a little more of a method to their madness, so all is not lost," Cohen said.

The storm, which dumped more than 25 inches of snow on Washington D.C., and stretched from the Carolinas to New England, caused about one-third of Toys R Us stores to cut hours, but sales were strong because people got out to shop before the storm hit, CEO Jerry Storch said. Online sales also rose.

Generally, shoppers who stayed home shopped online. Retail Web traffic peaked at 2.9 million visitors per minute Saturday night, according to the Akamai Retail Net Usage Index. That was up from 1.9 million on the Saturday before Christmas in 2008, though that day — Dec. 20 — was closer to Christmas than this year.

Online spending has been a bright spot. It grew 14.4 percent from the day after Thanksgiving through Dec. 12, according to MasterCard Advisors' SpendingPulse, which estimates sales in all payment forms.