June retail sales top forecasts - Los Angeles Times

Each category of retail sale, including discounters, stores and sellers of clothes, posted June sales gains that exceeded the estimates. Above, shoppers stroll Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica. (Arkasha Stevenson, of the Los Angeles Times / July 8, 2011)Retailers beat gloom June last month, surprisingly strong results sales with lower prices of gas, generalized refreshing and warm, leading many buyers to hit summer clothing stores.

With the important season of back to school then on the calendar of the retail, consumer gave merchants the type of the month, they had been hoping a good but not great first half of the year. Combined with the better than expected Thursday labour market data, retail sales report led to a stock market rally and helped raise optimism one day before use U.S. figures were released.

"It was a month very robust." "This is the kind of momentum that retailers to build and deferred back to the school," said Ken Perkins, President of research firm retail Metrics Inc. combined with any other economic trends improve, "" he suggests we will removing a soft patch and it will be a second half stronger economic growth.""

Department store chain has posted an increase of 6.5% year sales, better than the 4.9% than analysts expected, according to the count of the Thomson Reuters of 25 retailers. Each category of retail sale, including discounters, stores and sellers of clothes, displayed the gains that exceeded the estimates.

With retailers offering their deeper cuts of the year so far, many buyers said that they spent more freely in recent weeks.

Leah Herndon, a mother in the home of Pacific Palisades, then buy a bit of a last month shopping, clothing training, shoes, jeans and tops for herself and for her two daughters summer clothing.

"There are just for the sales of many right now that I have had the advantage," Herndon said at the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica Wednesday. "My children and I all stuff desperately need." "I think that we all had our fair share."

Lily Stofman, a student a recent graduate of the USC, pre-medical devalues purchase itself also in June, a new fall wardrobe.

"In recent years, I wasn't shopping for everything, but recently I picked up," said 25 - year - old West Hollywood. "I see gas was $3.83 and I was very excited." It just feels better. »

Performance June reflect a harmonious blend of stores. Club warehouse Costco Wholesale Corp., said sales rose 14%, clothing company Brands Limited posted a 12% gain and retailer teen zumiez Inc., said sales increased by 9.8%.

Luxury retailers are once again a month of standout, with sales up to 12.5% at Neiman Marcus Inc., 11.9% to Saks Inc. and Nordstrom Inc. 7.9%.

"Luxury is strong and will not receive more strong,", said Sherif Mityas, a management consulting firm A.T. Kearney partner. "You really see a large return of luxury buyer and the next lower level, which is the aspiration shopper."

Among the shares of retail Thursday, Corp. Kohl climbed $ 3.69 to $55.78, target Corp. jumped $3.23 at $51.67, Nordstrom acquired 2.08-$ 50.56 and Brands Limited has increased from $1.05 to $40.36.

Monthly results are based on sales in stores open at least a year, known as same-store sales and considered a good barometer of the health of a retailer because it excludes openings and closures.

Analysts noted that they were still waiting to sales at retail to stabilize and strong spending come from all economic levels.

Brian Sozzi Wall Street strategies "trends in retail sales monthly coaster became the standard in this cycle of economic recovery," written in a note to investors. "The recovery of expenditure is far from being uniform."

He said that ""in a feast and famine environment,"retailers will report number sales solid in the weeks prior to specific holidays or when the discounts are deep, which leads to volatility."

Economists say that a decrease in the unemployment of the nation is necessary in order to fuel consumer spending, which represents more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity.

On Thursday, the Ministry of labour reported that the number of Americans who made the first time claims for unemployment benefits dropped last week, the lowest level in seven weeks to 418,000. The June unemployment figures will be published Friday.

Retailers are the future of the season to return to school, which begins this month and which is usually the second pilot sale of the year (after the holiday of the year), 16% of annual sales in the industry.

The International Council of Shopping Centers Thursday is expected to increase from the year of 3% to the total of sales for the period of back to school for three months.

It is a modest estimate, and analysts said retailers will have to be done for them.

"Inventories of clearance of goods related to the summer were widely sold through," said Perkins of retail Metrics. "The key question emerges as to what extent the vast majority of consumers in the average to low-income area will be prepared to pay the full price in July".

But retailers may need to offer contracts at the expense of the benefits to attract buyers focus on discounts.

The Third Street Promenade, William Cole, a Culver City television Editor, had "splurged" on a book, but said that it was not shopping for anything else.

"I am very selective on what to buy," he said. "I pick up stuff each time in a while, but I'm looking for sales and I did not easily buy that I used to."

Andrea.Chang@LAtimes.com