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ICSC and Goldman Sachs Weekly Chain Store Sales Index: weekly sales results experienced decline of 2.8% for the week ending June 7, 2014

NEW YORK, 2014-6-10 — /EPR Retail News/ — The week-over-week pace of chain store sales followed a rolling coaster pattern over the past two weeks with a strong surge in spending at the end of the May fiscal month that was followed by a reversal of the pace in the first week of the five-week fiscal month of June. According to the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) and Goldman Sachs Weekly Chain Store Sales Index weekly sales results experienced a sequential weekly decline of 2.8% for the week ending June 7, 2014 after a gain of 2.9% in the week prior. However, on a year-over-year basis sales remained robust at the start of the five-week June fiscal month at 3.0%.

“After a week-over-week surge in sales two weeks ago, the sales pace reversed that spike in the latest week,” said Michael Niemira, ICSC vice president of research and chief economist. “The good news is that the fiscal month started off on a strong level with relatively strong year-over-year gains in business among most retail segments with outstanding strength in wholesale clubs, furniture stores, dollar stores and noteworthy gains among the drug, discount, electronics, office and apparel stores. If the five-week period holds where the month began, that would be the strongest year-over-year gain in the ICSC-GS index since January 2013,” Niemira added.

Looking ahead, ICSC Research forecasts that June monthly comp‐store sales will increase by 3.5% on a year‐over‐year basis.

Week Ending     Index 1977=100     Year/Year Change     Weekly Change
7-June-14               554.6                        3.0%                        -2.8%
31-May-14               570.4                        3.1%                         2.9%
24-May-14               554.4                        2.1%                        -1.2%
17-May-14               560.9                        2.4%                        -1.3%

[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:
Michael Niemira
+1 646-728-3482
mniemira@icsc.org

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

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