For American apparel retailers, December 2013 was the most challenging month in the past five years. Weak consumer spending and harsh weather conditions all affected same-store sales growth.
Before Christmas last year, retail research firm Merics predicted that U.S. apparel sales would grow 3.5% in December 2013. Ken Perkins, the company’s general manager, said retailers will feel the pressure on profits this holiday season. Judging from the latest statistical results, the clothing sales performance of this month is indeed not surprising. Although the stock market hit a record high in December, home prices have been rising, employment has improved and retailers are offering attractive discounts, sales have fallen short of expectations.
The International Council of Shopping Centers said that compared with the same period last year, the same-store sales rate did not increase much. Michael Niemira, vice president of the association, said: “While some retailers feel that sales growth is difficult, for the industry as a whole, sales have met expectations and exceeded last year’s growth rate. Unfavorable sales and extreme weather It has nothing to do with sweeping the United States.”
Cato, a large retail company, lowered its fourth-quarter earnings per share (0.11 to 0.15 US dollars), with an estimate of 0.17 to 0.23 US dollars. The person in charge of the company said that bad weather has the greatest impact on corporate sales. In addition, LBrands’ earnings per share in the fourth quarter of last year were $1.6, which was also lower than expected. The company said the lower-than-expected profit was mainly due to excessive promotional activities, which cut into the company’s profit margins.
However, SteinMart Chief Financial Officer Jay Stein said: “Despite the severe weather experienced in much of the United States, our same-store sales increased in December. This is very encouraging because the external environment is extremely harsh, and we The profitability has been verified.”
At the same time, data released by comScore, a US Internet traffic monitoring agency, showed that the total US e-commerce retail sales during the 2013 Christmas holiday shopping season reached US$42.8 billion, a year-on-year increase of 10%. During this period, online retail sales exceeded US$1 billion on 10 days. However, online shopping sales fell far short of expectations during the Christmas period, not even reaching $1 billion on one day.
