Fiscal June proved to be a stronger month than anticipated by many industry observers as the first sustained period of warm summer weather met with the arrival of government stimulus checks to drive positive comparable store sales growth. June comparable store sales grew 4.3% over the year-ago month according to a preliminary tally of 38 retail-chain stores compiled by the International Council of Shopping Centers.
However, the majority of this growth was driven by discount/mass sales, most notably Wal-Mart, which posted a 6.4% increase for the month (in total, or 5.8% excluding fuel sales from Sam's). Excluding the Wal-Mart result, overall same-store sales increased just 1.9% for the month.
With the transition to back-to-school and fall merchandise on schedule for later this month, ICSC Research expects July sales will post an increase of about 2.0% to 3.0%.
Unfortunately, data compiled by retail point-of-sale service
SportScanINFO suggests that the results were not as strong for the sporting good industry.
According to the SSI data, Sport Softgoods sales, which includes Sport Footwear, Sport Apparel and Licensed Softgoods, declined approximately 3.9% when measured in dollars for fiscal June. A low-single-digit increase in Sport Footwear was more than offset by a low-teens decline in Sport Apparel and a high-singles decrease in Licensed Softgoods.
Within the Sport Footwear results, the trend to value held largely true
as sales grew in the mid-singles for Internet/catalog retailers and high-singles for family footwear when measured in dollars. However, the data suggest value applies to more than just price as the discount/mass channel saw a mid-singles decline in dollar sales. Full line sales were down mid-singles, while mall specialty was up just over 1% for the month.
Sport Apparel saw wilder swings on a channel basis as full line posted a low-singles increase in dollars, but changing inventory mixes at mall specialty and family footwear created double-digit decreases and increases, respectively.
Licensed Softgoods were generally soft, though full line did see dollar sales growth for the month.
