Retailers Report Uneven Sales For Last Month --- Summer Clothes Sold Well, But Most Other Items Sparked Little Buying
The nation's largest retailers reported uneven sales in July as shoppers snapped up summer apparel bargains but remained tightfisted when it came to spending on almost everything else.</br></br>Clearance sales of summer clothes produced major gains for big department stores and chains, but specialty stores and off-price retailers were down sharply. And sales of furniture and other hard goods sagged as growth in consumer spending on such goods remained soft despite recent lower interest rates and upticks in newhome sales.</br></br>Sales at stores open at least a year climbed 3.6% in July, according to Goldman, Sachs & Co.'s national retail-sales index, not quite matching the 4.4% growth measured in July last year. Another such index, that of Salomon Brothers Inc., registered 4% growth for the month.</br></br>Analysts were left guessing when a rebound in consumer spending would arrive. "Things aren't getting worse, but they're not getting better, either," said Robert Buchanan, a retail analyst at NatWest Securities Inc. "The slowdown is over, but it's unclear when things will turn up."</br></br>The holding pattern took a heavy toll on computer and consumer-electronics retailers, especially Best Buy Co. The Minneapolis company reported a 1% decline in same-store sales for July, compared with a 16% increase in such sales last year. Richard L. Schulze, chairman and chief executive, blamed the decline partly on chilled demand for personal computers, as consumers wait for Microsoft Corp.'s Windows 95 to be released this month before upgrading hardware.