A weekly measure of sales at chain stores, discounters, and department stores. It is a less consistent indicator of retail sales than the weekly ICSC index. It is also calculated differently than other indicators. For instance, figures for the first week of the month are compared with the average for the entire previous month. When two weeks are available, then these are compared with the average for the previous month, and so on. It might be more useful to compare year-over-year figures since these are indeed compared to the comparable week a year ago. This index is correlated with the general merchandise portion of retail sales covering only about 10 percent of total retail sales. Why Investors Care
| Released on 5/6/08 For wk 5/3 2008 | ||||||||
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Highlights
Redbook reports a 1.4 percent year-on-year same-store sales rise for the May 3 week, up 1 tenth from the prior week and well below the 2.3 percent rate from ICSC-UBS, a report that's running significantly stronger than Redbook. Redbook isn't releasing a tally for the full month until Thursday when a run of chain stores post their monthly results.
The overall outlook for April is definitely up in the air though those chains that have already reported their results are for the most part showing more strength than March -- but largely due to an easy comparison with a very weak April 2007. Retail sales for this April may prove better than a very weak March when the non-gas non-auto category showed a 1.2% year-on-year rise, but sales nevertheless will be hovering at best at the rate of inflation.
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