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April Sales Fueled by Easter & Pent-up Demand
April retail sales increased 6 percent, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers, a New York–headquartered trade group for retail centers.
Economists expected the Easter holiday to boost retail sales. However, Michael Niemira, chief economist for ICSC, said that April sales were fueled by more than holiday shopping.
“After sluggish demand earlier in the year due to adverse weather, consumers increased their spending significantly in April,” Niemira said. “The April pace was very strong, likely reflecting some pent-up demand being unleashed.”
(With a late Easter—the holiday fell on April 20—all Easter shopping shifted into April, so ICSC research added a percentage point to April sales. In March, it subtracted a point from that month’s sales growth to reflect the strong forecast for Easter shopping.)
April was particularly good for Gap Inc. Same-store sales for its Old Navy division increased 17 percent, a performance that market researcher Ken Perkins of Retail Metrics, a Boston-area market-research company, called a “blow out” in a May 8 research note. Old Navy’s April performance was a vast improvement over its March sales, when the Old Navy division reported a decline of 7 percent.
The company’s Gap division posted a same-store-sales increase of 3 percent. The Banana Republic division reported a same-store sales increase of 3 percent. The company-wide same-store sales for Gap Inc. were 9 percent.
On May 8, Bebe Stores Inc. also reported results for its third quarter of 2014. Same-store sales declined 5.7 percent. The Brisbane, Calif.–based retailer reported net sales of $93.5 million, which was a decrease of 17.2 percent from $112.9 million for the third quarter of the previous fiscal year.
Steve Birkhold, Bebe’s chief executive officer, considered the retailer’s performance a mixed one. “Our third-quarter performance did not meet our expectations, largely due to winter storms and a challenging overall retail environment,” he said in a company statement. “That said, we were highly encouraged with the improved sales and margin performance in both our e-commerce and catalog businesses.”
For May 2014 retail sales, the ICSC forecast an increase of 3 percent to 3.5 percent.
