Saturday, August 15, 2009

Worst Performance Ever For Back-To-School Sales

There are two things retailers thought they could always count on, a robust Christmas shopping season and strong back-to-school sales. However, the Christmas fairy tale shattered last year and back-to-school sales are in the midst of their first ever collapse this year.

Inquiring minds are reading Retailers See Back-to-School Sales Slowing.

Halfway through the back-to-school shopping season, retail professionals are predicting the worst performance for stores in more than a decade, yet another sign that consumers are clinging to every dollar.

Stock analysts at Citigroup are predicting a decline in back-to-school sales for the first time since they began tracking the figures in 1995. They estimate August and September sales at stores open for at least a year — known as same-store sales — will fall 3 to 4 percent, compared with an increase of nearly 1 percent in the same period last year.

The National Retail Federation, an industry group, expects the average family with school-age children to spend nearly 8 percent less this year than last. And ShopperTrak, a research company, predicted customer traffic would be down 10 percent from a year ago.

“This is going to be the worst back-to-school season in many, many years,â€