Same-Store Sales Trends

by: Bespoke Investment Group December 01, 2008 | about stocks: AEO / ANF / APP / ARO / BKE / CACH / CKR / COST / FRED / GPS / HOTT / JWN / KSS / LTD / MCD / PLCE / PSMT / PSUN / RAD / SKS / WAG / WMT    

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All the talk right now is about retail sales and how much the consumer will spend this holiday season. For those interested, below we highlight historical monthly year-over-year same store sales figures for various retail categories as calculated by Bloomberg. As shown, department stores are struggling the most, with specialty stores not far behind. Both are at their lowest levels in the history of the Bloomberg indices. Discount stores and wholesalers remain positive, although they've started to decline in recent months. (click images to enlarge)

Deptstores

Discountstores

Specialtystores

Wholesalestores

Below we provide October same store sales figures for a number of individual retailers. As shown, American Apparel (APP) had the best October, although the same can't be said for its stock this year. APP is followed by Pricesmart (PSMT), The Buckle (BKE), Hot Topic (HOTT), and McDonald's (MCD). Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) had the worst October, with same store sales down a whopping 20%. Saks (SKS), The Gap (GPS), Nordstrom (JWN) all saw same store sales decline by more than 15% as well.

Samestoresales

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This article has 3 comments:

  •  
    Dec 01 02:37 AM
    It's about time the US consumer figured out that "Made in China" on articles found in department and specialty stores is the same "Made in China" junk one can find at discount retailers...
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Dec 01 03:33 AM
    what is the cutoff date for this data? is some of it as old as March 2008?
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Dec 01 07:13 AM
    excuse me if I use some generalities here, but this is not tough.

    A- Department stores have been in decline for 30 years, save a few positives with the arrival a few creative operators like Nordstroms.

    B- Specialty stores go from one fad to the next. There are plenty of successes in here as well as failures

    C- That leaves discounters and wholesalers. Walmart's volume and growth, dwarfs all the rest.

    D- Mortgage debt has been consuming an ever larger share of household spending.

    Guess what. Things are changing. If you are looking for a contrarian trend, I'd say that the consumer is deleveraging but mostly out of mortgage debt and consumer electronics.

    Once you've got three ipods, a plazma TV, three PCs in your home, whatg else do you need?


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