US retail sales slowdown over February

February left US retailers in general and apparel ones in particular with lower-than-expected sales. As it starts to be the trend, many of them blamed the weather – too cold to lure shoppers in to stock on new spring collections. Additionally, consumer confidence indexes faltered.

As revealed by the majority of high street names of the US apparel industry over the past week, the harsh winter weather apparently discouraged customers to buy new spring collections, contributing to soft sales figures over February.

As highlighted by main analysts monitoring the sector, sales were strong through the first half of the month, but were severely impacted by record cold and inclement weather across most of the country in the second half, as pointed out by the analysis team at Trefis.

Valentine's Day and Presidents Day sales promotions were the main highlights of the month. It is worth a note though that February is normally amongst the slowest month for retailers following the most important holiday season sales rush, reports RTTNews.

Additionally, and per data gathered in a report by the Conference Board on February 24, its consumer confidence index retreated by more than expected in the month of February after reporting a sharp increase in the previous month, but still set at pre-recession levels.

On the upside, economists expect consumer spending to begin speeding up its growth curve in the coming months, boosted by positive signs in the labour market and lower gas prices.

L Brands, Inc. (LB) and Stein Mart, Inc. (SMRT) topped the winners chart. While the owner of Victoria's Secret and Bath & BodyWorks chains reported an increase of 6 percent at its February comparable store sales, Stein Mart, Inc informed of a 2.6 percent growth in comparable store sales for the month.

Less positive about their monthly comparable store sales were the likes of Buckle, Inc. (BKE), which felt the pain of its fellow teen apparel retailers with comparable store net sales for the month of February slowing down by 2.7 percent. Net sales also edged down 0.9 percent to 88.6 million dollars.

King of the American casual style Gap Inc. said meanwhile that its same-store sales fell 4 percent in February, with net sales for the four-week period ended February 28, 2015 falling to 918 million dollars. Gap namesake stores noted a 7 percent decline on same stores sales, while Banana Republic’s same indicator withdrew by 5 percent but remained flat at Old Navy stores.

"February sales were significantly impacted by winter storms during the last two weeks of the month," commented John Cato, chairman, president, and CEO of Cato. (CATO) reported that February same-store sales declined 10 percent, and total sales also decreased 7 percent from last year to 80.5 million dollars, according to ‘NASDAQ’.