December 2001 Retail Sales Grinched
December wasn’t an outright disaster for most retailers, but for those closing stores and pink slipping employees, and even for those who are accustomed to the bountiful bottom lines of the ’90s, it will do until the real thing comes along. Holiday Y2K will be remembered as the one when the After-Christmas Sale signs went up before the department-store carolers stopped serenading would-be customers. It will also be remembered as the holiday when such retail giants as Wal-Mart and Target reported December sales well below their already modest pre-holiday estimates, and when the Salomon Smith Barney index of 50 retailers reported same-store sales up only 0.5 percent in December, compared to 6.2 percent one year ago. Who’s to blame? Mother Nature, for one. Winter storms across much of the country put the skids to retailers’ hopes that the final holiday weekend would be a spending blow-out that would make up for an anemic season. Other reasons for the retail sector’s poor performance: falling consumer confidence, rising gas and oil prices and record levels of credit-card debt going into the season. There were bright spots though: Hingham, Mass.-based Talbots Inc. continued offering its classic apparel for women and reaped a 12.9 percent December same-store sales increase; in fact, Talbots, which operates approximately 673 stores in the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom, ended up as one of the few chains to revise upward its earnings estimate for the fourth quarter. Another retailer doing well despite the tough economic times was Menomonee Falls, Wisc.-based Kohl’s Corp. The management-owned, specialty department-store chain, which operates approximately 320 stores in 26 states, posted a spectacular 14.8 percent same-store sales rise for December.—Louis Chunovic
