Cash registers chime in solid yuletide retail sales season; Thanksgiving weekend reflects economic upturn.

Shoppers worked off their Thanksgiving dinners with a major shopping spree, spurring retailers' hopes for a strong holiday sales season that would mark a rebound from four down years.

Several retailers throughout Los Angeles County reported sales increases of 10 percent or more over the Thanksgiving weekend compared with a year earlier.

Thanksgiving weekend is looked at as the kickoff to the holiday shopping season, the busiest season of the year for retailers. And a solid upswing in retail sales would reflect and feed overall economic revival in the Southland.

"We definitely had double-digit (percentage) increases over last year," during Thanksgiving weekend, said Keith Foxe, a spokesman for consumer electronics retailer Good Guys Inc. Most of the San Francisco-based company's stores are in Southern California.

Likewise, Target stores in L.A. County reported double-digit percentage sales increases, said company spokesman Dave Watters. Indeed, the California stores reported stronger sales gains than did Target stores elsewhere in the country, he said.

And JC Penney Co. Inc. stores in L.A. County reported double-digit percentage sales gains for the Friday after Thanksgiving, although sales on Saturday and Sunday weren't quite as strong, said Special Events Manager Dave Oliver.

At the Neiman-Marcus Group department store in Beverly Hills, "we had over 100 people outside the store waiting for it to open the day after Thanksgiving," said spokeswoman Beverly Morgan. She declined to report sales figures.

Houston-based Telecheck, a check guarantee service used by retailers across the country, reported a 7.9 percent increase in the dollar value of checks written in Southern California during Thanksgiving weekend compared to the year before. Meanwhile, only a 4.5 percent rise was posted nationwide.

Looking in the crystal ball

Some retailers say their sales gains that weekend portend robust sales for the season overall. "It's a good sign. That definitely bodes well for the holiday season," Foxe said.

Watters added that he now expects the Southland Target stores to post double-digit percentage advances for the holiday season overall.

Since the weather was chilly Thanksgiving weekend, retailers said their biggest sellers were clothes to keep warm. "The cold weather that came during the weekend caused an increase in (the purchase of) outer wear," said Bill Ihle, spokesman for Los Angeles-based Broadway Stores Inc.

JC Penney sold a slew of jackets, as well as fleece and flannel clothing, Oliver said.

Target stores' hottest-selling items included electric blankets and heaters, jackets and thermal underwear, Watters said.

Meanwhile, in the toy department, Target sold oodles of Power Ranger and Spawn toy action figures, as well as Nintendo video games, Watters said. Over in the housewares section, the hottest sellers were bread-making and pasta-making machines, he said.

At the upscale Neiman Marcus store, customers gravitated toward cashmere goods, including gloves, sweaters, socks and robes, Morgan said. They also pulled out their wallets to buy large quantities of leather goods, such as cellular phone holders and day-packs, she said.

Looking at consumer electronics sold by the Good Guys, big-screen televisions are "really hot," Foxe said, in addition to multimedia computers, which can operate CD-ROM.