• by Sarah Mahoney , August 14, 2008

Despite releasing lower second-quarter sales results and cutting its profit forecast for the rest of the year, Macy's says the good news is that it's doing better than its competition. It also says it will launch a new marketing approach and announced a new partnership, with Dunnhumby.

While the British retailing consultancy may not be a familiar name to American marketers, many observers credit Dunnhumby as a key factor in Tesco's success in the UK. Macy's describes the deal as "a significant multi-year agreement," adding that Macy's will be DunnhumbyUSA's exclusive department store client. (DunnhumbyUSA is a joint venture between the British company and Kroger.)

DunnhumbyUSA will "analyze Macy's customer sales data, develop customer segmentation models, and work with the Macy's organization" to increase sales, Macy's says in its release.

Meanwhile, Macy's released lower second-quarter results. The company, which no longer reports monthly sales reports, says same-store sales fell 2.1% in the quarter. Overall, sales slipped 3% to $5.72 billion.

"While we are never fully satisfied when sales are down," the company says in its release, "we continued to outperform most of our major competitors in same-store sales and to gain market share with a combination of differentiated merchandise, current fashions and great value."

The company says it is launching an exclusive Tommy Hilfiger product next month, will be adding 275 FAO Schwarz toy shops in its stores, and is planning plenty of hoopla for the brand's sesquicentennial in the third quarter. "The fourth quarter will follow with a fresh approach to holiday marketing that we believe will be compelling to our customers," it says.

Still, the company is lowering its outlook for the year. "The performance of the economy and level of consumer confidence will have an important bearing on retail sales in the second half of 2008, and thus it is difficult to forecast future results with any level of certainty," it says, but is now predicting that same-store sales in the fall season will be flat to down 1%, resulting in a decline of between 1% and 1.6% for the full year.