ICSC: Same-store sales rise 0.1 percent last week

NEW YORK – Retail sales at U.S. stores open at least 12 months rose 1.0 percent last week from their level a week earlier, the International Council of Shopping Centers and UBS Securities said today in their report for the seven days ended Oct. 13, according to Bloomberg News.
The weekly improvement – the first in more than a month – came as stores promoted and discounted more items to lure shoppers discouraged by the housing slump and high gas prices. “There are a lot of stores that have gotten reliant on discounting,” Russell Jones, director of retail at consulting firm AlixPartners LLP in Southfield, Mich., told Bloomberg News.
Compared with the same week of 2006, sales rose 2.5 percent. For all of September, ICSC member stores reported same-store sales growth of 1.7 percent – the smallest year-over-year gain since April, when sales fell 1.9 percent.
Same-store sales, which exclude stores that have recently opened or closed, are considered a key measure of retailers’ performance. A broader measure of September sales at old and new retailers and food-service shops nationwide rose 5.0 percent year-over-year, the U.S. Commerce Department’s Census Bureau said last week. (READ MORE)
Looking ahead, the National Retail Federation and TNS Retail Forward both forecast holiday sales will grow this year, though at the slowest pace in five years, Bloomberg News said. An NRF survey found shoppers plan to spend an average of $935 this holiday shopping season, 3.7 percent above last year’s level.
The International Council of Shopping Centers, a New York-based trade group, and investment bank UBS Securities LLC track same-store sales at about 60 chains that represent about 10 percent of U.S. retail sales. Additional information is available at www.icsc.org.

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