February Retail Sales Looking Up

By Greenhouse Grower staff|March 10, 2009

Despite forecasts putting February sales below the same time last year, numbers held flat thanks to promotions for Valentine’s Day and President’s Day, according to a recent MarketWatch story that also ran in the Baltimore Sun.

Retailers had project as much as 2 percent drops in sales for February, but instead several retailers posted better-than-expected figures for the month, including Walmart, Family Dollar and Hot Topic, among others.

Walmart led the group, too, with sales figures that increased 5.1 percent, which more than doubled the average analyst estimate, according to the story. In fact, Walmart buoyed the rest of the group. On the other end of the spectrum, luxury retailers like Saks and Nordstrom posted worse-than-expected declines in sales.

Analysts aren’t convinced this is the beginning of a turnaround by value-driven retailers, however. They cited margin-eroding promotions as the basis for February’s success, and pointed to Easter’s shift to April as reasoning for consumers to close their wallets in March.

Read the entire story here.