Research >> Economics
ICSC Chain Store Sales rose 4.8% in Dec 14 Wk
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The sequential weekly sales pace soared over the past week and has been very choppy on a week-over-week basis for several weeks. The ICSC-Goldman Sachs (ICSC-GS) chain store sales index for the week ending December 14th leaped by 4.8% from the prior week's seasonally-adjusted level and improved modestly to a 2.0% pace on a year-over-year basis. Despite the latest week's improvement, smoothing the pattern with a four-week average suggests that the week-over-week trend pace was slightly under 0.1% per week over those four weeks, which portrays a much more subdued sales performance. Seemingly what drove the weekly sales pace in the latest week was an accelerated rate of holiday-gift completion, which stood at about two-thirds through Sunday and shot up by about 17 percentage points from the prior week (considerably stronger than the prior year's nearly 14 percentage point rise, as well). Promotions continue to be the "name of the game" to get consumers to shop.
U.S. comparable-chain-store sales for November rose by a sluggish 2.1% as measured on a year-over-year basis by ICSC Research's final tally of 12 major retail chain stores. Sales were held back by weak apparel (-0.6% year-over-year) and lower gasoline prices that shaved growth from Costco's comparable-stores sales. ICSC Research forecasts that December monthly comp-store sales will increase by between 3% and 4% from the same month of the prior year with Cyber Monday sales falling into the December reporting period this year versus November in 2012, which should help lift December's tally. The monthly aggregate tends to have a "run rate" of about 2 percentage points higher than the industry as a whole. With 74 stores reporting third-quarter sales, ICSC's quarterly all-industry comparable-store sales tally is trending up by 1.8% on a year-over-year basis, which is slightly weaker than the 2.2% pace of the second quarter. Excluding Wal-Mart, industry sales are trending up by 2.9% for the third quarter vs. 3.0% during Q2.
Posted: December 17, 2013 Tuesday 07:45 AM