Retail Sales Rise

The end-of-the-world continues to be delayed:

Sales at U.S. retailers rose 3.6 percent last week from a year earlier, as some shoppers returned to stores to take advantage of post-Christmas discounts, dodging a snowstorm that assailed the East Coast.

Sales for the week ended Jan. 1 rose 0.4 percent from the previous week, according to a chain-store sales index released today by New York-based International Council of Shopping Centers and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. That compared with a 1 percent gain a week earlier.

The holidays can generate up to 40 percent of annual revenue for some retailers. While a Dec. 26 blizzard covered parts of the U.S. Northeast in more than a foot of snow, retailers including Urban Outfitters Inc., Gap Inc. and Columbus, Ohio-based Express Inc. lured shoppers with unique clothing later in the week, said Richard Jaffe, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. in New York.

Posted by on January 4th, 2011 at 11:13 am


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