Will December sales beat expectations?

Q: Retail sales seemed to be pretty good over the Black Friday weekend. Do you think that we will beat expectations for December?

A: At this point it’s hard to tell. A lot of our better and luxury customers shopped early in the season and as we know apparel is not a big gift item.

The big-box retailers should do well given that they are very promotional. But as for our betters and luxury stores, we expect sales to slow down and then get busy right before Christmas, producing decent sales for the month but no big gains.