Christmas Sales Produce Mixed Bag : Retail: Home furnishings and electronics fare well, but clothing fails to attract value-conscious buyers.

You can’t pin one label like “great” or “terrible” on the just-ended Christmas shopping season. But “lopsided” will sum it up perfectly.

Retailers who specialize in home furnishings, appliances and electronics generally had a good Christmas. Apparel stores, with a few big exceptions, had a difficult time, bringing in sales only by slashing prices.

“I never saw one quite like it,” Daniel Barry, a retail industry analyst with Merrill Lynch & Co., said of the season.

The season bodes well for the economy despite the sales disparity. It showed consumers willing to spend, although they’re not going to purchase something just for the sake of it. If they don’t like what they see or they don’t like the price, they won’t buy.

Among the winners were the rejuvenated Sears, Roebuck and Co. and J.C. Penney Co. Inc., both of which had good clothing sales. Catalogue firms L.L. Bean, Williams Sonoma and Eddie Bauer also had a strong season.

“Our sales are solid and right on plan,” John Costello, senior executive vice president at Sears, said Christmas Eve.

Procrastinating shoppers kept some retailers guessing until the very end. “I feel a lot better than I did before this week,” Kenneth Macke, chairman of Dayton Hudson Corp., said Friday.

Walter Loeb, a prominent retailing analyst and consultant, said, “All in all, it was a satisfactory season, given the fact that apparel was not a big mover.”

Jeffrey Feiner, a Salomon Brothers Inc. analyst, said it appeared overall industry sales would rise a decent 5.5% during December, compared with last year’s very strong Christmas season.

Clothing sales at many department and specialty stores suffered, as they have for much of the year, because consumers are dissatisfied with fashion trends. “Everyone had the same experience,” said Myron E. Ullman III, chairman of R.H. Macy & Co. Inc.

Salomon Brothers estimated several apparel chains, including Limited Inc., had holiday sales below expectations. Limited, like a number of other retailers, declined to comment on Christmas, saying it would wait until January, when most big retailers announce their results for the month of December.

Sears’ and Penney’s strong clothing sales are directly attributable to new merchandising and advertising. Once perceived as dated and dowdy, Sears has remade itself, advertising “the softer side of Sears.”

Penney has done well because consumers perceive it as offering good value. Barry, the Merrill Lynch analyst, said the company’s national advertising campaign has given the company good exposure and sales for its private-label brands including Arizona jeans.

Spokesman Duncan Muir said Thursday that sales were up by mid-single-digit percentages in Penney stores, while catalogue business was up 20%.

Retailers found consumers willing to spend if there was a good value or a long life span for purchases. That accounted for good sales of electronics, including stereos and big-screen TVs.

“We’re seeing intelligent shopping,” Sears’ Costello said. “What consumers are interested in is purchasing what they need versus what they want, or they try to get both.”

Ullman, noting that Macy’s and Bullock’s stores had good sales of fine jewelry, described consumers as fairly upbeat. While apparel sales “make it a difficult month,” he said the last few days of the season were encouraging.

Department store operators appeared to have mixed results, with home business offsetting the problems in apparel. But some clothes were big sellers, particularly seasonal favorites like sweaters, ties and sweat shirts. Colder weather helped outer-wear sales.

Macke found Dayton Hudson shoppers willing to spend on merchandise if it was new and interesting. His stores sold out of Montblanc highlighter pens, markers priced at up to $185.

The University of Wisconsin’s first trip to the Rose Bowl in 30 years gave Dayton Hudson a boost. Macke said the company’s department and discount stores in Wisconsin and neighboring Minnesota had “unbelievable” sales of Badger sweatshirts.

At Spiegel and Eddie Bauer, “We had had a very strong order trend to the bitter end,” said spokeswoman Debbie Koopman. She said Eddie Bauer stores also did well.

L.L. Bean sales were up 20% from last year, spokeswoman Kathleen Parker said. And Williams Sonoma, whose entire business is home furnishings and housewares, had “an excellent Christmas,” spokesman Pat Connolly said.

The big catalogue apparel retailers fared well because they focus on one kind of consumer and then serve their customers well, Feiner said.

Similarly, at Talbot’s, the clothing retailer which aims at more affluent women, “Business is very strong and I think we have a chance to do double-digit comps in our stores,” said Edward Larsen, chief financial officer. He referred to comparable store sales, those from stores open at least a year, which are considered the best yardstick of a retailer’s strength.

Retailers that did well this season had stocked up on merchandise the public wanted. BJ’s Wholesale Clubs focused on computers, jewelry and housewares. “That paid off handsomely,” said Herb Zarkin, president of BJ’s parent Waban Inc.

Pier 1 Imports, where merchandise is almost entirely home-related, originally expected comparable-store sales to rise 6% to 7%. Chairman Clark Johnson said Friday the company would exceed that forecast when all sales are tallied.