Sales at U.S. retailers such as
Federated Department Stores Inc., K-mart Corp. and Abercrombie &
Fitch Co. fell recently after snowstorms in the Northeast kept
customers away from stores during the second weekend of the
holiday-shopping season.
Sales declined 3.3 percent in the week ending Saturday from
a year earlier, according to ShopperTrak, which monitors results
at about 30,000 stores. Winter storms dumped as much as 3 feet of snow in parts of Massachusetts Sunday after
covering the region from Virginia to Maine on Saturday.
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Federated closed 17 Macy’s and eight Bloomingdale’s early on
Saturday. K-mart Holding Corp. closed two New Hampshire outlets
early Saturday and 10 Maine and New Hampshire stores early on
Sunday. Merchants are expected to recoup some of the sales as
shoppers push purchases to later in the month.
“It may keep them from shopping for a little bit, but it
means that cooler weather drives traffic into the stores because
of the need to buy warmer clothes,” said Donald Gher, who helps
manage about $500 million at Coldstream Capital Management in
Bellevue, Wash., including shares of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
and Costco Wholesale Corp.
Sales of gloves and snowblowers were the exception. Sears,
Roebuck & Co. sold 28,000 snowblowers during the weekend,
compared with 34,000 in all of December 2002, said spokesman
Chris Brathwaite. Lowe’s Cos., the No. 2 home-improvement chain,
sent 400 18-wheelers to deliver extra snowblowers, rock salt and
other items to stores.
Online retailers also likely benefited as consumers browsed
the Internet while stuck at home. InterActiveCorp.’s HSN home-shopping network reported sales of $30 million on Saturday as
shoppers ordered cookware, digital camcorders and cosmetics
featured on the Internet and television.
Bloomberg News
