RETAIL SALES
February Sales Forecast to Be Modest
Retail sales increased slightly, 0.3 percent, during the last week of February, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers and Goldman Sachs Weekly Chain-Store Sales Index, but it won’t shake the winter blues, said Michael Niemira, ICSC’s vice president of research and chief economist.
“The ongoing negative impacts of stormy weather caused us to pare our monthly estimate of sales to about 0.3 percent from upwards of about a half percentage point higher,” he said in a statement.
Liz Pierce of Ascendiant Capital Markets LLC also forecast that inclement weather threw a wet blanket over retail sales. “Traffic remained problematic during the first part of the month with the only compelling call to action being aggressive promotion and discounting,” she wrote in a March 4 research note.
However, teen retailer Zumiez Inc. reported solid gains during February. It posted a same-store -sales increase of 2 percent, compared with a decrease of 8.9 percent during the same period last year.
Zumiez’s net sales for February 2014 were $48.4 million, which was an 8.8 percent increase from the net sales of $44.5 million reported for the same time in the previous year, said Rick Brooks, chief executive officer of Zumiez.
Most retailers reporting monthly sales will post their results on March 6. California Apparel News will publish a larger article on February 2014 retail sales on March 7
