June comp sales matching goals

By Staff -- Home Textiles Today, 6/19/2007 1:05:00 PM

New York --Steadily improving moving into the month, same-store retail sales perked up by 2.0% during the second week of June, building on a softer 1.7% increase the week before, the Johnson Redbook Index reported.

"The week's performance was better than recorded in week one," said Redbook analyst Catlin Levis, and "all retailers in our model were on or slightly ahead of plan for the week."

The Father's Day event "brought people into stores and drove up traffic producing positive spillover business in other product areas at department stores," said Levis. Fueled by the holiday, department-store comps rose by 1.2%, far ahead of the meager 0.7% increase of the preceding week -- but remained modestly under plan for the first two weeks of the month, up 0.9%, compared with a target of 1.0%.

Discounter sales improved slightly, leaving month-to-date results slightly lagging plan. Sales were up by 2.5% during the second week; for the two weeks month-to-date, discounter sales rose 2.4%, shy of a target of 2.5%.

Helping to drive sales, "Temperatures finally have warmed up to seasonal levels," said Levis. "Sales of hard and soft seasonal merchandise also improved, with the emphasis varying depending on the format and store. Summer apparel was active in both discount and department stores," said the analyst, and "those merchants dealing in consumer durables such as fans, air conditioners and sporting equipment also had good results."