The rich went shopping in May, with luxury retailers Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus reporting big gains. And while other stores had solid gains for the month, there were a few letdowns, with
Target coming in below expectations.
Kantar Retail, the Columbus, Ohio-based consulting firm, says its index of same-store sales rose 5.7% in May, after a combined March-April gain of 5.4%.
(Results of the two months were combined because of a late Easter.) And it's certainly an improvement from May, 2010, when sales rose just 2.7%. And the International Council of Shopping Center, which
tracks a slightly different group of retailers in its index, sales chain-store sales rose 5.4% on a year-over-year basis.
Saks posted a whopping 20.2% gain, in part because of a timing shift
with a promotional event. But even without that change, it says sales would have shown a percentage gain in the mid teens, fueled by a strong demand for women's designer apparel, shoes, handbags, and
accessories; men's clothing, shoes, and accessories; jewelry; cosmetics; and fragrances. And at Neiman Marcus, where comparable results rose 14.8%, it was the same story, with women's apparel and
shoes, designer handbags, jewelry and men's all selling well. At Nordstrom, same-store sales gained by 7.4%.