Cooped-up shoppers head to the stores

EVERETT — Like many shoppers at Everett Mall on Friday, Kevin and Amy Persell of Monroe needed to find a cure for cabin fever.

They’d been trapped in their home for a week by 3 feet of snow. They needed to get out, Kevin Persell said.

So on Friday morning when they saw a break in the snow, the Persells decided it was time.

At 11:30 a.m., with the temperature at 36 degrees, it hadn’t started snowing yet. And major roads were clear. The Persells were headed to Steve &Barry’s with their two small children — 11-week-old Hailey and 7-year-old Emily — to snag some deals in the store’s “Going out of Business” sale, Kevin Persell said.

Just as at other malls nationwide, Everett store owners were hoping to lure shoppers to help stem what are expected to be big losses. But not everybody was on a buying spree.

Theodore and Dawn Perry of Everett, shopping at Steve &Barry’s, had a rare opportunity to leave their six kids at home, said Theodore Perry, an assistant pastor.

Like the Persells, the couple had been trapped inside their home for days. They decided to head out to make a few exchanges at Macy’s. When they saw the sale at Steve &Barry’s, they decided to look for a pair of pants, Dawn Perry said.

“This is the first time I’ve been out in a couple of weeks, I’m not kidding,” she said. “I do not like being cold.”

Marie Davega, a liquidation consultant with the Nassi Group, was helping Steve &Barry’s with signs and selling off merchandise.

The sale on T-shirts — “five T-shirts for $10” — and the fact that everything in the store had been marked down 50 percent to 70 percent, was bringing people into the store, she said.

Even the fixtures and the mannequins were on sale.

At the play area outside Steve &Barry’s, Jaslyn Bushong, who was visiting from Virginia Beach, N.C., was watching her 2-year-old son, Esias, swoop down a short slide. She and her father, James Bushong, had mainly come to the mall so Esias could play.

At Game Stop, where business was brisk for trade-ins and gift card purchases, store manager Jonathan Kresger had to add a few extra staffers to the schedule, he said.

Things had started out a little slow in the morning but were picking up by early afternoon, Kresger said.

“I can’t complain. Honestly, we’re doing 10 percent better than last year,” he said.

A few items marked at $10 off and a “buy two, get one free” sale on used games and accessories also was bringing people into the store, he said.

In the morning, the mall parking lot wasn’t full. But both the lot and food court were jammed by early afternoon. Some of the visitors were there to catch one of the new movies.

Outside at Regal Cinemas, Pradeep and Vandanaa Dharmalingam were scanning the schedule to see if “Valkyrie,” starring Tom Cruise, was playing.

The south Everett couple hadn’t been out of their house for several days, they said.

“I’ve been here for 18 years and I haven’t seen anything like this,” Pradeep Dharmalingam said of the weather.

Kim Roberts and Amber Poe, 10th-graders at Cascade High School in Everett, were waiting for the movie “Bedtime Stories.” They hadn’t been able to get out for days, Kim said.

The girls were planning to head to Hot Topics, Borders and Zumiez to look for bargains after the movie, they said.

At Zumiez, one of the busier shops, manager Holly Anderson, 22, was helping a customer at the cash register.

She said the store had hoped sales would be bigger Friday, but she was taking things in stride. Many shoppers were coming in with exchanges, with gift cards or with returns, something she said was expected.

A combination of “the E-word” — meaning the economy — and the weather were hampering sales, she said.

“This year, it’s all about the deals,” she said. “And as a company we’ve been running a few deals I never thought I’d see — crazy deals.”

Those deals might lead to an even better cure for cabin fever: markdowns on snowboard gear, bindings, boards and clothes.

Reporter Leita Crossfield: 425-339-3449 or crossfield@heraldnet.com.