Chains Report Mixed Results for August : Retailing: Department stores had a good month, boding well for the holiday season. Specialty apparel chains were sluggish.

Retail sales were mixed during August, but the results reported by big-store owners Thursday harbored good omens for their back-to-school business and the holiday shopping season.

August sales indicate consumers are willing to spend but that they’re likely to remain highly selective about where they shop.

Some retailers, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Dayton Hudson Corp., reported sales figures slightly off their recent stronger pace. Specialty apparel chains such as Limited Inc. continued to report sluggish sales, but department stores had a good month.

“The beginning of the month was relatively slow, but it ended up with a bang,” retailing analyst and consultant Walter Loeb said. “I am confident that the fall season will accelerate.”

The back-to-school season is one of retail sales’ best for apparel. Historically, it has also been an indicator of how retailers will do during the crucial holiday shopping season, during which merchants often make half their annual profits.

“We still expect an improving environment during the second half of the year, aided by favorable economic factors such as employment growth, personal income gains and likely continued low inflation,” said Jeffrey Feiner, an analyst with Salomon Bros. Inc.

Consumers are increasingly buying their clothes in department stores rather than in the specialty chains that dominated the apparel business a few years ago. If that pattern holds, department stores will have a strong holiday season and the specialty chains will languish, which is what happened in 1993.

Department stores have improved their lot over the past two years by offering consumers better selections and more for their money.

The Salomon Bros. retail index, the investment firm’s barometer of sales performance, rose 4.9% after a 3.9% gain in July. For August, 1993, the index was up 3.5%.

Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest retailer, said sales from stores open at least a year--same-store sales--rose 6.6% from last August; total sales were up 22%.

Same-store sales are considered the most accurate measure of a retailer’s strength. They exclude the results of newer stores, where sales tend to be unusually high, and also exclude results from stores closed over the past year.

Kmart Corp. said same-store sales rose 3.7% and that overall business was up 8.6%. The numbers were an improvement over the company’s performance in recent months.

Sears, Roebuck & Co. said same-store sales advanced 5.2% and that overall sales rose 5.1%.

Dayton Hudson said same-store sales rose 1.4% and that overall business picked up 7.8%. The company said back-to-school business at its California-based Mervyn’s clothing chain was weaker than expected.

J.C. Penney Co. said same-store sales at its flagship stores rose 10.9% and that total sales, including its drugstore and catalogue operations, rose 10.7%.

Limited Inc., stymied for several years by an inability to get its fashion statement right, reported same-store sales were unchanged but that overall business rose 7%.

Gap Inc. said same-store sales fell 5% and that total sales rose 6%.