Economy: Dec. 15, 2000
Retail-customer traffic figures for the first 16 days of the holiday season (through Dec. 9) show mall traffic down by 0.5 percent and department-store traffic down by 3.8 percent, compared to the same period last year, according to data compiled for the National Retail Federation (NRF); the NRF also cautioned that holiday 1999 was a “blockbuster” for the retail industry and so “may be difficult to repeat”; nonetheless, because Christmas falls on a Monday this year, procrastinating customers will fill malls and stores over the last pre-Christmas weekend, the NRF predicted...Meanwhile, there was a sharp and generally unexpected 0.4 percent drop in overall retail sales in the month of November, according to the U.S. Commerce Department; retail sales at clothing stores, however, were up by 0.8 percent in November, double the previous month, and retail sales at department stores were up 0.2 percent, half the rise in October.
