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发帖数: 29846 | 1 Economists Blame Mild Weather For Poor Retail Sales
Goldilocks Weather Bad For Shopping
Weather in the past two months has generally been unseasonably pleasant.
Economists say this is bad for shopping as Redbook's Same Store Sales Report
shows retail sales year-over year are only up 1.1%.
Sales in Redbook's same-store sample slowed sharply in the November 7
week, to a year-on-year plus 1.1 percent from an already moderate 1.9
percent in the prior week. Unseasonably warm weather has been hurting sales
of seasonal goods, which could be a factor in Friday's retail sales report
for October. Turning back to November and this report, readings in the early
part of the month will be forgotten as attention turns to the holiday
kickoff late in the month.
Definition
Redbook is a weekly measure of comparable store sales at chain stores,
discounters, and department stores. Figures for the first week of the month
are compared with the average for the entire previous month. When two weeks
are available, then these are compared with the average for the previous
month, and so on through the month. It might be more useful to compare year-
over-year figures since these are indeed compared to the comparable week a
year ago. This index is correlated with the general merchandise portion of
retail sales covering about 10 percent of total retail sales.
Weather Comments
Apparently, weather needs to be just right, not for comfort levels, but to
induce shoppers to buy. Supposedly, it's important that weather not be too
good. Colder weather would be good now, but colder weather in January won't
be.
I propose comparing weekly retail sales to the same week as last year or to
the monthly average a year ago is essentially meaningless, if not outright
ridiculous. |
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