NEW YORK–The nation’s major retailers posted significant downturns in sales in May, as it appears many consumers chose to stay home in spite of pickups in consumer confidence.
Macy’s saw its same-store sales dive by 9.1 percent last month. J.C. Penney posted a comparable-store sales decrease of 8.2 percent, dragged down by the retailer’s fine-jewelry division and by poor performance from its southeastern stores. On the discounter side, Target reported a same-store-sales drop of 6.1 percent—”somewhat below our expectations,” according to Gregg Steinhafel, chairman, president and chief executive officer.
The most positive performance among the major national retailers came from Kohl’s, whose comp-store sales declined by 0.4 percent. Kevin Mansell, president and CEO, said May for Kohl’s turned out stronger than planned, and was driven by healthy sales in accessories and by positive comparable-store sales from the company’s southwestern stores.
Gasoline proved to be a major braking force for the warehouse clubs. BJ’s Wholesale Club posted an overall same-store-sales falloff of 6.8 percent, but taking away gasoline sales, the company’s comp-store numbers actually rose by 4 percent. For Costco, same-store sales dropped 6 percent with gasoline but only 1 percent without gasoline.
Much of this was due to the steep drop in gasoline prices nationwide between May 2008 and last month. Average gasoline prices nationwide on June 1 were down 57.5 percent compared with June 1 of a year ago, according to data from the U.S. Department of Energy.
In reporting its April sales figures, Walmart announced last month that it would no longer report sales on a monthly basis. Instead, it will provide comparable-store numbers for each 13-week period in the retail year.