U.S. clothing sales business bleak in March

Business News Agency April 12th According to SpendingPulse tracking data of MasterCard's market research company, consumers have been affected by multiple factors such as Easter later than in previous years, continued cold weather and soaring gasoline prices. Tightly packed. In the United States, the sales growth rate of some retail industries slowed in March, but compared with the same period in 2010, the sales of most retail products continued to increase.

Michael McNamara, vice president of spending pulse market research, said that due to the impact of higher gasoline prices, consumers have reduced travel, so online sales accelerated faster last month, but they still do not have a 10% share of overall retail sales. In March, overall online sales increased 16.1%, more than the first two months of this year, and higher than the 15.9% in the same month last year.

Mcnamara said, “The retail performance in March is not too bad, and the upward momentum is still there, but if oil prices continue to rise, it will have an increasingly greater impact on consumer spending.”

Details on the performance of major domestic retailers last month will be further confirmed on the 7th. Analysts expect the same-store sales of these retailers will be lower than the same period the previous year.

An important factor in the expected decline in retail sales is that Easter this year is 20 days later than last year, so it did not catch up with the Easter sales season last month. Analysts believe that consumer spending will look a lot better if you look at sales in March and April together.

Stifel Nicolaus analyst Jeff believes that in March the clothing dealers' business was bleak. Except for the late Easter, the lingering cold weather also hindered consumers from purchasing spring clothes.

Ken Perkins, president of RetailMetrics, estimated that same-store sales last month will increase by 8.7% from last March to 0.5%. If he adds up in March and April, he expects to rise 3.5%, continuing the gains in the first two months of this year. According to Thomson Reuters' forecasts, same-store sales will decline by 0.7% in March.

According to statistics from the American Automobile Association (AAA) and Wright Express, the average price of gasoline in the United States was 3.685 yuan per gallon on the 6th, up 18.2 points and 85.7 points respectively from the previous month and April of last year. The expenditure pulse report also shows that gasoline purchases have decreased for five consecutive weeks, proving that consumers have reduced travel. At the same time, many other commodities are raising prices.