Retailers Post Modest Gains For December --- Christmas Sales Were Poor, Though Not a Disaster, As Markdowns Hurt Net
The nation's big retailers reported modest gains for December, with heavy markdowns putting severe pressure on their profit margins.</br></br>Securities analysts said the Christmas shopping season was the worst for retailers in several years, but not as poor as they had expected earlier. "All in all, in contrast to previous forecasts of a very gloomy Christmas, many (retailers) reported sales gains in line with their plans -- that is, the plans revised after the (stock market) crash," said Jeffrey Feiner, vice president of Merrill Lynch Capital Markets.</br></br>Jeffrey Edelman, an industry analyst at Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc., said, "It was not as robust as we would have thought in July but a lot better than we thought on Oct. 20."</br></br>Discounters did best, specialty apparel retailers did the worst, and department stores fell in between last month. The average gain in sales at stores open for a year or more was about 4.5% to 5%, analysts said. But same-store gains of specialty retailers fell by 4% to 5%, said Fred Wintzer, an analyst at Alex. Brown & Sons Inc. in Baltimore.</br></br>At Chicago-based Sears, Roebuck & Co., the nation's largest retailer, same-store sales rose 2.8%. For stores open more than a year at Dayton Hudson Corp., based in Minneapolis, sales were up only 1.4%. Same-store sales rose 3% at Los Angeles-based Carter Hawley Hale Stores Inc. and at Chicago-based Montgomery Ward & Co., a unit of Mobil Corp. The Columbus, Ohio-based specialty apparel retailer Limited Inc. reported a 2% decline in same-store sales for December.