Weekly sales rise by 1.4% as lingering hot weather drives consumers indoors

Press Release:

NEW YORK (July 20, 2010) – After last week's sales decline retailers saw the sales trend reverse itself as a result of easy comparisons and hot weather which drove consumers indoors as a way to avoid the heat. According to the ICSC and Goldman Sachs Weekly Chain Store Sales Snapshot weekly chain store sales increased by 1.4 percent overall for the week ending July 17, 2010. On a year-over-year basis, the sales index also improved and rose by 4.2 percent – the strongest since May 8, 2010 (+4.3%).

"Retailers experienced a decent spurt in sales this past week following last week's decline," said Michael Niemira, ICSC director of research and chief economist. "However, over the last two weeks, the seasonally-adjusted sales performance was relatively flat. For the month, ICSC Research expects July sales to be up between 3.0 to 4.0 percent compared with a hefty 5.0 percent decline in July 2009," Niemira added.

The Weekly Chain Store Sales Snapshot is produced by the International Council of Shopping Centers and Goldman Sachs. This index measures U.S. nominal same-store or comparable-store sales excluding restaurant and vehicle demand. The weekly index is constructed as a sales-weighted geometric average growth rate to preserve long-term consistency and is statistically benchmarked to a broad-based monthly retail industry sales aggregate that currently represents approximately 40 retail chain stores, which also is compiled by ICSC. A representative sample of those major retailers has been used as a control group to extrapolate the weekly sales index. As such, the weekly index statistically represents industry sales and is not just a sum of sales for a handful of retailers. The standard period used for the index is Sunday through Saturday, even though some retailers use a different weekly accounting period. The weekly sales index is presented on an adjusted basis to account for normal seasonality and to counter other data anomalies. Weekly seasonal adjustment is at best difficult for chain store sales given that retailers can and often do shift promotions to counter typical shifts in the calendar. Nonetheless, the approach to weekly seasonal adjustment used follows from the Piser Method, which was popular in the early 1930s and became the standard for weekly adjustment. 

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is a bank holding company and a leading global investment banking, securities and investment management firm. Goldman Sachs provides a wide range of services worldwide to a substantial and diversified client base that includes corporations, financial institutions, governments and high net worth individuals. Founded in 1869, the firm is headquartered in New York and maintains offices in London, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Hong Kong and other major financial centers around the world.

Founded in 1957, ICSC is the premier global trade association of the shopping center industry. Its 57,000 members in over 90 countries include shopping center owners, developers, managers, marketing specialists, investors, retailers and brokers, as well as academics and public officials.