New York – Chain-store sales rose a
solid 2.3 percent last week as last-minute shoppers and those waylaid by winter
storms made up for lost time.
The seasonally and calendar-adjusted
results, reported by the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) and
Goldman Sachs, benefitted from the two “catch-up forces,” which also pushed
week-over-week sales higher for the third consecutive week, ICSC said.
The trade association is projecting
a 2 percent increase in chain-store sales for December, compared with a 4.6 percent
decline in comp-store sales last year, and has reaffirmed its forecast for a 1
percent increase for the November through December holiday sales period,
compared with a 5.6 percent decline in 2008.
