• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, June 2, 2011

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%.