Sales at stores open at least a year at major retail chains rose 3.4 percent compared with December 2010, according to Thomson Reuters data, just slightly above the 3.3 percent that analysts had expected.
But those sales were largely gained by big markdowns that will probably lead to lower profits at retailers, and chains including Target, Kohl’s and J. C. Penney lowered their fourth-quarter profit expectations.
Shoppers seemed inclined to buy only when they saw huge discounts, and that suggested American consumers are still not back on their feet.
“Retailers came in with pretty conservative assumptions and they were hoping to blow them out of the water — they really didn’t,” said David L. Bassuk, managing director and head of the retail practice at AlixPartners, a consulting firm. His store visits over the holidays indicated that many of the promotions were “unplanned,” he said, a tactic retailers resort to in response to slow spending.
“Retailers hope that as they plan some promotions on key items, that will entice the consumer to spend money,” he said. “That didn’t happen — the planned promotions were not as exciting as the consumer today expects, so the retailer has to revert back to things that were unplanned, like ‘50 percent off our whole store,’ ‘60 percent off our whole store,’ which is when you can see times are tough.”
The top five performers all beat analyst estimates by at least 3 percentage points. Those were the teen stores Zumiez and the Buckle; the large discounters Ross and TJX; and Nordstrom.
Apparel stores, which were heavily promotional as the month went on, fared the best as a sector, with sales at stores open at least a year increasing 7.2 percent.
Those figures exclude the Gap Inc. chains, which include Old Navy and Banana Republic, where same-store sales declined 4 percent. The Gap, Wet Seal, Cato, Bon-Ton and Freds reported the worst same-store sales.
Target and Kohl’s, which both do huge promotions around the holidays, came in below analyst estimates, and both reduced their fourth-quarter profit expectations on Thursday.
Target’s same-store sales were up 1.6 percent, versus expectations of a 3.1 percent increase. Target said in a statement that electronics, movies, music and books were particularly weak performers. It reduced its fourth-quarter profit expectations to $1.35 to $1.43 a share; it had earlier estimated $1.43 to $1.53 a share.
Kohl’s same-store sales declined 0.1 percent, while analysts had expected a gain of 2.2 percent. Kohl’s said in a release that low sales of cold-weather gear were partly to blame. It lowered its fourth-quarter profit expectations to $1.70 to $1.73 per share, down from $1.93 to $2.04 a share.
J.C. Penney also lowered its fourth-quarter estimate, saying it now expected to earn 65 to 70 cents a share instead the of $1.05 to $1.15 it had previously expected.
Many stores seemed to be using promotions to get items out the door at the expense of profits. John D. Morris, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets, said in a note to clients that promotional activity at apparel stores was running above last year’s December level. “Promotions were aggressive throughout the month, and particularly in the 10 days before Christmas,” he said.
American Eagle Outfitters said in a release that in the last two weeks of December, “the company made a strategic decision to take a more aggressive promotional stance. While impacting margins, the decision enabled the company to generate strong unit sales.” Same-store sales for November and December together increased 12 percent, it said, although same-store sales slowed significantly in December. (Because it does not regularly report monthly sales, American Eagle is not included in the Thomson Reuters tally.)
J. C. Penney said its average price of an item fell for the month, though transactions were up. There was a “higher level of markdown activity caused by overall softer sales trends,” said Angelika Torres, a Penney spokeswoman, in prepared remarks.
Mr. Bassuk, the retail consultant, said that with consumers still unwilling to buy at full price, 2012 would probably bring “closing of stores and, I think, closing of retailers . It’s a more dire situation than many had anticipated.”
Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=1f77ff214bd52ba2fb8e1a740589c6a3
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