Most Major Stores Post Sales Gains in June Over ’93 : Retailing: Women’s clothing and home furnishings lead the way. Sears, Wal-Mart and Target are the biggest benefactors.
Robust sales of women’s apparel and home furnishings contributed to strong June sales for most of the nation’s biggest retailers, who persuaded customers to spend by offering attractive discounts.
Sears, Wal-Mart and Target reported some of the biggest gains in same-store sales, which are sales at stores open at least a year. Those figures are considered the most accurate measure of a retailer’s health.
Department stores were able to lure customers in June with Father’s Day sales and clearances on summer merchandise, said industry analyst Walter Loeb, president of Loeb & Associates in New York.
“This demonstrates that if there are really substantial markdowns, if real values are offered to consumers, then consumers will take their hands out of their pockets and buy,” said Kurt Barnard, president of Barnard’s Retail Consulting Group in New York.
Department stores that sell items for the home, such as consumer electronics, furniture and bedding, benefited from a boost in those categories, Barnard said. Seasonal items, such as barbecues and air conditioners, did well as summer weather settled in across the country.
Sears was the leader among department stores, with same-store sales increasing 8.4% in June. Same-store sales grew 6.8% at J.C. Penney, while May Department Stores, which operates Robinsons-May stores, reported a 5% gain over the same month last year.
At Dayton Hudson Corp., same-store sales rose 6.8%. The retailer’s Mervyn’s division, where sales have been weak due to California’s sluggish economy and inventory problems, posted a 1% decline, but the company’s Target discount division’s same-store sales rose 12%.
Federated Department Stores, which owns Bloomingdale’s and other chains, saw its same-store sales rise 2.6%. Gottschalks, the Fresno chain that operates department and specialty stores on the West Coast, also saw sales rise 6.8% compared to June, 1993.
Los Angeles-based Broadway Stores was not part of the boom: Its same-store sales rose a mere 0.1%. Broadway spokesman Bill Ihle said sales were depressed because two floors of the Broadway store in Sherman Oaks remained closed for most of June due to earthquake damage, and the Northridge store will be closed until November.
Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest retailer, said same-store sales increased 9.3%. Kmart’s sales rose a modest 2%.
Specialty apparel stores did not fare as well last month, in part because they lacked the “value-oriented summer promotions” found in department stores, Loeb said.
Limited, the country’s largest specialty apparel chain, saw same-store sales fall 5%. Sales at San Francisco-based Gap’s stores rose a modest 2% over June, 1993.
Ann Taylor stores were the exception. Sales for the New York-based specialty retailer jumped 16.4% last month.
Meanwhile, wholesalers reported that stockpiles of unsold goods grew 1.6% from April to May, the largest increase in nearly two years.
Economists said the higher inventories reflect optimism on the part of wholesalers that consumers will be buying more in the coming months. That, combined with strong retail sales and a 0.3% increase in wholesale sales in May, is another indication that the economy is on a spending rebound, said Richard Berner, chief economist at Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh.
Meanwhile, the number of new claims for state unemployment benefits around the country totaled 332,000 last week, a decline of 21,000 from the week before and the biggest drop in 10 weeks. However, the number of claims in California increased by 4,529, the largest increase of any state.
