NEW YORK, 2014-5-28 — /EPR Retail News/ — A combination of one-off factors, adverse weather and consumers’ willingness to travel over this past Memorial Day weekend, led to the decline in weekly sales. As a result retail sales slipped by 1.2% for the week ending May 24, 2014, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) and Goldman Sachs Weekly Chain Store Sales Index. On a year-over-year basis sales continue to remain positive but slowed to 2.1% for the week.
“The latest week’s decline was, in part, due to the increased number of Americans traveling this past holiday weekend. The Automobile Association of America (AAA) estimated that this year’s Memorial Day weekend (Thursday‐Monday) would reach a new post recession high of 36.1 million travelers‐‐going more than 50 miles from home‐‐making it the second highest since 2000,” said Michael Niemira, ICSC vice president of research and chief economist. “In addition, adverse weather in some heavily populated areas gave consumers another reason not to shop,” Niemira added.
Looking ahead, ICSC Research forecasts that May monthly comp‐store sales will increase between 3.0% and 3.5% on a year‐over‐year basis. Monthly sales will be reported on June 5, 2014. The monthly aggregate tends to have a “run rate” of about 2.0 percentage points higher than the industry as a whole.
Week Ending Index 1977=100 Year/Year Change Weekly Change
24-May-14 554.4 2.1% -1.2%
17-May-14 560.9 2.4% -1.3%
10-May-14 568.4 3.9% -0.1%
03-May-14 569.2 2.0% -2.0%
[Editor’s notes: The complete report will be available at 7:45 a.m. at http://www.icsc.org/research/publications. In addition, historical data from this index is available under the Research section on ICSC’s website. To view the data, visit and click on the “Weekly Chain Sales Tracking” link and enter the following member id number (1177584) and password (press2002pass) to obtain access to report and historical data.
The Weekly Chain Store Sales Snapshot is produced by the International Council of Shopping Centers and Goldman Sachs. This index measures U.S. nominal same-store or comparable-store sales excluding restaurant and vehicle demand. The weekly index is constructed as a sales-weighted geometric average growth rate to preserve long-term consistency and is statistically benchmarked to a broad-based monthly retail industry sales aggregate that currently represents a sampling of leading retail chain stores, which also is compiled by ICSC. A representative sample of those major retailers has been used as a control group to extrapolate the weekly sales index. As such, the weekly index statistically represents industry sales and is not just a sum of sales for a handful of retailers. The standard period used for the index is Sunday through Saturday, even though some retailers use a different weekly accounting period. The weekly sales index is presented on an adjusted basis to account for normal seasonality and to counter other data anomalies. Weekly seasonal adjustment is at best difficult for chain store sales given that retailers can and often do shift promotions to counter typical shifts in the calendar. Nonetheless, the approach to weekly seasonal adjustment used follows from the Piser Method, which was popular in the early 1930s and became the standard for weekly adjustment.
The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is a bank holding company and a leading global investment banking, securities and investment management firm. Goldman Sachs provides a wide range of services worldwide to a substantial and diversified client base that includes corporations, financial institutions, governments and high net worth individuals. Founded in 1869, the firm is headquartered in New York and maintains offices in London, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Hong Kong and other major financial centers around the world.
Founded in 1957, ICSC is the premier global trade association of the shopping center industry. Its more than 60,000 members in over 90 countries include shopping center owners, developers, managers, marketing specialists, investors, retailers and brokers, as well as academics and public officials. As the global industry trade association, ICSC links with more than 25 national and regional shopping center councils throughout the world. For more information, visit www.icsc.org.
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ICSC Contacts:
Jesse Tron
+ 1 646-728-3814
jtron@icsc.org
Malachy Kavanagh
+ 1 646-728-3495
mkavanagh@icsc.org
Goldman Sachs Contact:
Leslie Shribman
+1 212-902-5400