Retail Sales Off Their Mark

New York — The all-important Christmas selling season is getting off to a spotty and uncertain start, with the nation's biggest retailers reporting a mixed bag of same-store sales during November as penny-pinching consumers sought out bargains and turned their backs on full-price and luxury retailers.

At the top of the heap, and holding down all five top spots on the leader board were discounters, off-pricers and warehouse clubs, all appealing to consumers vexed by high gasoline prices and worried about the cost of heating their homes this winter. But lagging behind were higher priced department and specialty stores as shoppers held out for deeper discounts to come.

At the top of the heap, as they have been lately, were two deep-value warehouse operators, Sam's Clubs, whose same-store sales climbed 7.0 percent, improving on a 6.7 percent increase the month before; and Costco, whose comps increased 6.0 percent, coming off an even stronger 10.0 percent gain in October.

But acting as a drag were department store retailers like Federated, down 3.4 percent; tony Saks Fifth Ave., down 2.3 percent; and Bon Ton, down 0.9 percent. Dillard's eked out a slender 1.0 percent gain, while Gottschalks was virtually flat, up 0.5 percent. The few big gainers among department stores were J.C. Penney, still on a roll and rising 3.6 percent; and Saks Department Store Group, up 2.3 percent following the spin-off of some of its underperforming nameplates.

Even some of the biggest nameplates in the business weren't immune to the November blahs. Target reported a relatively stingy gain of 2.6 percent, and Kohl's couldn't quite hold its own, slipping 0.1 percent. Off-pricer TJX was off 1.0 percent; and Stein Mart was off 4.1 percent.