BTS Bust
Back-to-School sales dropped 0.8 percent from the first to the second week of August and chain-store sales in the second week of August rose a scant 1.8 percent over figures for the corresponding time last year, according to a recent report by the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi. Warm weather on the East Coast is being blamed in part for the lackluster sales, but the sluggish economy also appears to be holding back spending. Analysts are also looking to retailers’ slim inventories to cause problems down the road when there is little marked-down merchandise to spur sales. Federated Department Stores announced that it is revising its estimates for same-store Back-to- School sales. The Cincinnati-based retailer originally planned for sales growth from 3 percent to 3.5 percent. The new sales growth projections for that period are from 1 percent to 3 percent.
