NEW YORK–Consumers wracked by the recession continued to stay away from the major retailers, judging from their July sales results.
Department-stores J.C. Penney, Macy’s and Dillard’s all reported double-digit declines in same-store sales for last month, with J.C. Penney’s comp-store numbers falling 12.3 percent, Dillard’s off 12 percent and Macy’s down 10.7 percent. Only Kohl’s among the larger department stores managed a gain, barely sneaking over break-even with a 0.4 percent rise in same-store sales.
Despite the onset of the back-to-school shopping period, J.C. Penney said in a statement that it expects its same-store numbers to continue to fall in August. The retailer predicted that comp-store sales would drop 6 percent to 9 percent this month.
The picture was not much better for the discount chains. Target reported a same-store sales drop of 6.5 percent for July. Commenting that Target’s comp-number decrease was expected, Gregg Steinhafel, chairman, president and chief executive officer, said the mass merchant did manage favorable gross margins and maintained its discipline on expense controls in its retail segment.
BJ’s Wholesale Club registered a 9.1 percent decrease, although most of this occurred because of a 10.9 percent plummet in same-store gasoline sales; factoring this out, BJ’s actually had a 1.8 percent pickup in comp-store sales. Costco’s same-store sales fell 9 percent.