LWR Commercial Real Estate
Same-Store Sales Soar in February: Retail Real Estate
After a home run in December and a strong January, retailers continued their hot streak with same-store numbers that soared in February. ICSC, Retail Forward, Retail Metrics and RetailSails have all crunched the numbers from the publicly-traded retailers that report same-stores sales and the figures show that the post-holiday shopping period went well for most firms. Retail Metrics said same-store sales rose 4.1 percent. Retail Forward and RetailSails recorded the gain as 3.9 percent. ICSC said sales rose 3.7 percent.
ICSC’s tally shows that same-store sales rose 3.7 percent in January, the fifth time in six months that ICSC’s index has risen. The result was up from the 3.0 percent rise in January and almost double the roughly 2 percent gain ICSC had been expecting. ICSC expects retailers to post about a 2.5 percent gain in March.
ICSC’s numbers are based on 31 retailers. In the commentary in its monthly report, ICSC said:
Many retailers were negatively impacted by February’s severe snowstorms, especially in the Northeast. ICSC figures that the industry?wide weather drag on the February sales growth rate was worth about one percentage point. However, that did not seem to bring to a halt the retail recovery, even in the most weather?sensitive segments. For example, apparel?specialty store sales posted a solid 6.8% gain—its strongest performance since March 2007 (+7.0%—which was impacted by the Easter?shift in the calendar). Macy’s experience in February was typical of the industry. Macy’s chairman, president and CEO Terry Lundgren noted that his company’s February sales were “strong…despite a series of winter storms that affected store operations in some of [Macy’s] largest markets during key selling periods of the month.”
Contributing to the strength in February chain?store sales growth was the ongoing “easy comparison” with the same month of the prior year and a combination of stronger consumer demand in the aftermath of the 2007?2009 recession’s pent?up spending and better retailer margins, inventory control, product “right?sizing” and execution by the retailer.
Here are ICSC’s results going back to 1993.
(Click for larger image.)
According to Retail Forward, sales-weighted same-store sales excluding Walmart increased 3.9 percent in February for the 30 retailers that reported numbers. (A pdf with each retailer’s results can be downloaded here.) Frank Badillo, senior economist at Retail Forward, said in a statement, “Shoppers remain deal-focused and inclined to trade down among products and brands, but they are clearly ready to shop more and make some of the purchases they avoided during the recession.”
Retail Metrics, meanwhile, reported that same-store sales increased 4.1 percent. That is the largest monthly gain the company has measured since November 2007. Retail Metrics’ numbers include 29 retailers. Of those, 17 posted gains, one had flat sales and 11 posted same-store sales declines. In addition, 78 percent of retailers beat Retail Metrics’ expected sales numbers.
