It shows a relatively healthy sales picture. The question is how will the consumer react when oil prices filter through the rest of the economy. |
It was a moderate sales performance; good but not great. It really showed the resilience of consumers to spend on the holiday despite some strong head winds. |
It was a season that had a lot of uncertainty attached to it. But the economy started to turn up in December, which was helpful. |
It was an OK year, not a boom, not a bust. |
It'll be a very choppy pattern. |
It's a decent-to-moderate performance for the industry as a whole. |
It's a moderation after a boom. It's the same thing we're seeing at luxury retailers. There's not necessarily anything that's fundamentally worrisome, it's just the natural ebb and flow of demand. |
It's an uncomfortable forecast to the extent that nothing else seems to be going the right way for the economy, and ultimately, how can that support a decent-to-okay kind of Christmas? ... That's the question. Four percent is not aggressive, but it does suggest improvement over last year. |
January is a key month to watch. |
January is not a bellwether month. |
January was good across-the-board. When we do see more breadth to improvement, it usually indicates that an improving economy is helping. This is a good signal for retailers this fiscal year. |
July was weaker than anticipated but we also got an upward revision in June. So overall, the result was more neutral than negative. |
Last week's sharp decline in consumer confidence, as measured by the ABC News/Washington Post Consumer Comfort Index, may have been a precursor of this week's spending drop. |
Looking at November and December together, it seems that retail sales held up pretty well during the holidays, although last month consumers shifted their purchasing power to other categories such as furniture and home goods. |
Luxury has a strong run and it will slow down in 2005. This is more a function of the natural rhythm of retail spending. |