August Retail Sales Roundup

August sales figures for most apparel retailers are in today. Most of them experienced good months, but Saks and Zumiez had exceptional August same store sales numbers. Gap was weighted down by poor Old Navy performance, but did well otherwise. Wal-Mart had its best month since March.

Better stores

Nordstrom: Sales up 12.6 percent to $582.3 million. Same store sales up 6.6 percent.

Saks Inc.: Sales up 19.9 percent to $213.5 million. Same store sales up 18.2 percent beating expectations of half that.

Department Stores

Bon-Ton: Sales up 1.5 percent to $228.3 million. Same store sales for Bon-Ton and Carson’s were up 1.3 percent. (Bon-Ton up 0.3%; Carson’s up 1.8%)

Dillards: Sales down 4 percent to $537 million. Same store sales down 5 percent; analysts had predicted a drop of half that. Poor sales in many categories, including menswear, were to blame.

Gottschalk’s: Sales down 9.6 percent to $42.9 million. Same store sales were down 7.8 percent. Wall Street had predicted a 3 percent decline.

Macy’s: Same store sales up 2.4 percent, beating its own predictions of sales between a loss of 1 percent and a gain of 2 percent.

Mid-Tier and Mass

J.C. Penney: Same store sales down 4 percent, but analysts had predicted slightly worse.

Kohl’s: Sales up 7.1 percent to $1.2 billion. Same store sales down 0.6 percent on tough conditions in Southern states, confounding analyst expectations of modest gains.

Target: Same store sales up 6.1 percent, beating predictions of 5 percent. Gains are based on sales of non-apparel items.

Wal-Mart: Same store sales up 3.1 percent, beating both its own estimates and analyst expectations of 1.6 percent. Reuters reports it’s the biggest same store sales increase since March.

Off-Price

Ross Stores: Sales up 12 percent to $461 million. Same store sales up 4 percent, buoyed by tax holidays in Florida and Texas.

Stein Mart: Sales down 3 percent to $92.5 million. Same store sales down 5.2 percent. Analysts, who predicted a decline of 4 percent, were not too surprised.

TJX Co. Inc.: Sales up 7 percent to $1.4 billion. Same store sales up 4 percent at Marshall’s and T.J. Maxx, helped by the dresses, kids, and men’s categories, reports Reuters. Sales beat predictions of 3.8 percent.

Specialty and Catalog

Gap: Sales up 4 percent to $1.2 billion. Same store sales down 1 percent, on account of lower merchandise margins than last year. (Banana Republic up 7%; Gap stores up 2%; Old Navy down 4%)

Jos. A. Bank: Sales up 14 percent to $297.7 million. Same store sales up 7.7 percent.

Wilsons The Leather Experts: Sales up to $16.3 million from $15.8 million last year. Same store sales dropped 0.2 percent.

Young Men’s / Junior’s

Abercrombie & Fitch: Sales up 21 percent to $425.4 million. Same store sales up 6 percent, thumping analyst predictions of a 2.1 percent gain.

Aeropostale: Sales up 5.7 percent to $168.2 million. Same store sales up 1.7 percent. Analysts had predicted 2.3 percent gains.

American Eagle: Same store sales up 9 percent, beating Wall Street’s 6 percent expectations.

Buckle: Sales up 16.3% to $59.9 million. Same store sales up 16.7 percent.

Hot Topic: Sales down 2.5 percent to $71.2 million. Same store sales were down 1.1 percent, which was better than analyst predictions of a 2.5 percent drop.

Pacific Sunwear: Sales up 13.6 percent to $181.6 million. Same store sales were up 9.6 percent. (PacSun stores up 11.9%; Demo stores down 17.3%)

Zumiez: Sales up 39.7 percent to $47 million. Same store sales up 17.4 percent. Wall Street expected a more modest 9.5 percent gain.