Monthly Archives: November 2010

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Local retailers expect strong holiday season

Maui businesses say this year people started shopping

Local retailers are projecting a “strong holiday season,” with most contacted in the days before Black Friday saying overall sales for the year are already up compared to last. 

They also say that even before Thanksgiving people are forking out their dollars for the holidays, which is a good sign that retailers will have a merry Christmas. Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, remains a day of heavily advertised sales, but it is not so clear-cut a beginning of the Christmas shopping season as it used to be.

“I think it’s going to be a lot better than last year,” said Ashley Takitani, marketing director of Maui Thing, about this year’s holiday spending.

Takitani said that at the Wailuku store, which sells unique-to-Maui logo wear, they held their annual special sale a couple of weeks ago. A long snake of shoppers waited to pay for their items in the store, unlike last year when lines weren’t as long.

“We already had our friends and family sale for the holiday. It went really well,” she said, although she didn’t have sales figures on hand. “It’s a good sign for the rest of the holiday season.”

At her Lahaina Hale Zen store and Makawao Designing Wahine Emporium store, Lisa Payne was pushing to get out her holiday wares early.

“I feel like people are starting to shop early this year,” she said, estimating that right after Halloween people were holiday shopping at her stores, which sell a mix of home items, clothing and bath and body products, all with a Pacific twist. “It seems to move up earlier every year.”

“I think it’s actually going to be a strong holiday season,” Payne said last week, adding that her overall sales numbers are already up 20 percent compared to 2009.

Maui residents already appear to be out in full force scooping up what they can for Christmas, as hundreds if not thousands of shoppers filled War Memorial Gymnasium on Sunday for the annual Ben Franklin Craft Fair and many more were swarming Costco last week. Previously untouched rolls of Christmas wrapping paper appeared to be moving off the floors there. And at the Ross store in Kahului, shoppers, especially women, were busy picking out holiday home items to decorate with.

The National Retail Federation expects a 2.3 percent increase in spending to $447.1 billion in holiday sales this year. That would fall short of the 10-year historic average of 2.5 percent, according to the retail trade group.

Analysts say the increase in marketing before Thanksgiving as well as other tactics to make shopping easier are trolling for customers in a season when shoppers are expected to spend only a little more than last year, because unemployment is still close to 10 percent and consumer confidence still is not strong.

National retailers such as Sears have been advertising holiday specials and pre-Black Friday specials for weeks now to get early customers.

The term Black Friday, which has many definitions, can refer to the time retailers go from being in the red (making losses) to in the black (turning profits).

Despite a down economy for at least a couple of years in Hawaii, MauiGrown Coffee in Lahaina has seen annual profits increase “well over 25 percent per year,” said Jeff Ferguson, co-manager of the farm and retailer, which grows the Ka’anapali Estate Coffee on the slopes of the West Maui mountains near Lahaina.

Perhaps the increase is because the young company is growing and now has a presence in the consumer world and has established a customer base, which translates into repeat buying, he said.

But the business, which sells coffee, holiday baskets and logo wear, has not been immune to the Christmas shopper’s caution.

Ferguson said that last year customers seemed to analyze their purchases more.

“This year they seem to be happy buying coffee,” he said.

He added that customers might not be buying the most expensive types of coffee, so the company is offering some at “attractive prices” to get the consumers buying.

He is also seeing customers springing for logo wear, something they weren’t buying as much of last year.

Ferguson said that he, too, saw holiday shoppers begin to plunk down their cash or credit cards as early as the end of October, but he cautioned many at the time, telling them to hold off so they could get a “fresher” coffee batch if they waited.

* The Associated Press contributed to this report. Melissa Tanji can be reached at mtanji@mauinews.com.

Maui County awaits loss of funding

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 Federally funded extended unemployment compensation – that more than 8,500 Maui County residents have received since 2008 – will no longer be available after Nov. 30 unless Congress acts soon.Based on the failure of a House vote on a bill to extend federal Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC), the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations said late Thursday afternoon that benefits will expire at the end of the month, though news reports indicate that there is a glimmer of hope for the benefits.

The EUC program adds 47 weeks of unemployment insurance after the 26 weeks of state-funded unemployment insurance runs out.

“With over $416 million in EUC benefits issued in Hawaii since 2008, the federal extended unemployment compensation supplemented incomes of our jobless population and reduced the impact of the rising unemployment due to the national recession,” said Pearl Imada Iboshi, director of the state labor department, in a news release earlier this week.

Those currently receiving EUC will continue getting their payments, which are a maximum of $559 a week, until their payment tier runs out. There will be no progression to the next tier in the three-tier program, which is broken down into 20-week, 14-week and 13-week periods.

“The end of the EUC program means that each month approximately 1,600 individuals who exhaust their 26 weeks of regular benefits will not be able to apply for the first tier of federal EUC benefits,” said Colleen LaClaire, deputy director of the state labor department. “In addition, 2,500 individuals who exhaust their first and second tier of EUC benefits each month will not be able to move to the next tier of benefits.”

Unemployed workers should update their information on Hirenet Hawaii, the state’s online job listing service, and seek free job assistance services at the One-Stop Career Centers. For more information and assistance, unemployed workers should go to the websites hirenethawaii.com or hawaii.gov/labor/rapidresponse.

If the unemployment benefits program is extended, it will require passage by the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House. An attempt by House Democrats on Thursday to pass a bill (HR 6419) that would extend unemployment benefits for three months failed in a floor vote, according to Marvin Buenconsejo, communications director for the office of Rep. Mazie K. Hirono, D-Hawaii. The congresswoman whose district includes Maui County was one of the original co-sponsors of the bill.

LaClaire said the department has been informing clients of the potential cutoff of unemployment benefits. The department will continue to accept applications despite the uncertainty about the program.

From July 2008 to September, 8,500 Maui County residents have been assisted by the EUC program, the Research & Statistics Division of the labor department said. Statewide, the number is 48,000.

The department reported that $72 million in EUC payments have been made to Maui County residents since 2008.

Each week, 60 Maui County residents exhaust their state unemployment compensation. Since 2008, 1,500 long-term unemployed people in Maui County exhausted even their extended EUC period, the department reported.

“It’s not a great time, around the holidays” to be cutting off unemployment benefits, said LaClaire in an interview on Wednesday.

Maui financial business files for bankruptcy

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The Mortgage Store, a Maui business that was started by investment adviser George Lindell and sold to his daughter, has filed for bankruptcy, with liabilities of about $14.7 million and assets somewhat less.

The state securities commission has received complaints about the business and said it has an investigation pending, but it would not say more.

Several dozen people, most with Maui addresses, are unsecured creditors. Wailuku bankruptcy attorney Ry Barbin, who is handling the bankruptcy, said a case of this size with all unsecured creditors is unusual.

Lindell and his daughter, Holly Hoaeae, also advertised a next-door business called True Wealth Group. . . Living by Design that offers financial and investment advice.

According to Barbin, investors placed money with The Mortgage Store via promissory notes, with a 7 percent return.

The money was used to buy small residential properties, mostly in Texas but also in Maui, Indiana and Ohio.

When the value of the properties fell to below the mortgage balance, Barbin said, with no chance of regaining equilibrium, Hoaeae decided to liquidate through Chapter 7.

The largest listed creditor is owed less than $700,000. The assets have been placed under a trustee, Dane Field, who will dispose of them and distribute the recovery.

Barbin expects the return to be “substantial,” but lenders are not likely to be made whole.

Papers filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Honolulu show that Hoaeae was compensated by more than $1.6 million in 2008 and 2009, and more than $500,000 so far this year.

Lindell, who has had a mortgage business in Kihei for about three decades, sold his business to his daughter about two years ago and had no role in it since, Barbin said. Hoaeae is president, secretary and treasurer.

Hoaeae could not be reached for comment. She has not asked for personal bankruptcy, and True Wealth Group is not seeking bankruptcy.

State raises rates paid at its recycling centers

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HONOLULU (AP) – The state has increased the rates it pays for redeemable aluminum cans, glass bottles and plastic bottles.

The new rates were announced Wednesday by the Department of Health, which administers the HI-5 program.

Beginning Dec. 1, aluminum cans will fetch $1.60 a pound, up from $1.58; and bimetal cans will earn 29 cents per pound, up from 23 cents. Glass bottles will attract 12 cents a pound, up from 11 cents.

Mixed-size plastic bottles with a capacity of more than 17 fluid ounces will earn 94 cents per pound, up from 87 cents, while smaller plastic bottles will fetch almost $1.31 a pound, up from $1.22.