Macy’s holiday sales tumble
January 11, 2008

Cincinnati—Same-store sales at Macy’s Inc. for the five weeks ended Jan. 5 plummeted 7.9 percent, following a 13.4 percent increase in November, the company announced.

Combined November-December same-store sales decreased only 1.1 percent, however, consistent with the company’s fourth-quarter guidance.

According to Macy’s, sales for the two-month holiday selling period need to be considered together rather than individually for each month, due to the calendar shift between November and December.

“After a strong November, we had hoped that a more positive sales trend would continue through December. But macroeconomic trends led customers to spend cautiously for the holiday,” Macy’s chairman, president and chief executive officer Terry J. Lundgren said in a statement released yesterday. “That said, we remain on track to be within our guidance for same-store sales in the fourth quarter, albeit at the low end of the range of down 2 percent to up 1 percent.”

Total sales for the five weeks ended Jan. 5 decreased 7.4 percent to $4.624 billion, compared with total sales of $4.995 billion in the five weeks ended Dec. 30, 2006.

For the year to date, Macy’s sales totaled $25.051 billion, down 0.5 percent from total sales of $25.188 billion in the first 48 weeks of 2006. On a same-store basis, Macy’s year-to-date sales were down 1 percent.

The company expects January same-store sales to be down 4 percent to 6 percent compared with last year.

Macy’s Inc., with corporate offices in Cincinnati and New York, is one of the nation’s premier retailers, with fiscal 2006 sales of $27 billion. The company operates more than 850 department stores in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico under the names of Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s. The company also operates Macys.com, Bloomingdales.com and Bloomingdale’s By Mail.