NEW YORK – Sales at U.S. retail stores open at least one year declined a seasonally adjusted 0.2 percent over the past week, reversing the previous week’s 0.3-percent rise, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers and UBS Securities LLC report for the seven days ended July 21, Bloomberg News said.
Compared with the same week of 2006, same-store retail sales rose 3.0 percent last week, in the second-biggest gain since April, slowing from the previous week’s 3.4-percent increase.
Sales may get a boost in the weeks to come as shoppers in 12 states and Washington, D.C., wait for sales-tax breaks that start this weekend or Aug. 2, said Michael Niemira, chief economist at ICSC. “As a retailer, you really want to see the back-to-school shopping kick in earlier,” Niemira said.
For all of July, same-store retail sales may rise as much as 3 percent compared with the same month of 2006, the ICSC-UBS report said.
The International Council of Shopping Centers, a New York-based trade group, and investment bank UBS 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.
