Consumer spending declines despite holidays

Thanks to worries over the state of the economy, even holiday discounts weren’t enough to push consumer spending forward significantly.

According to a report from Marketwatch, a number of retailers saw June sales push ahead slightly as consumers shopped both for the holiday discounts and as a result of rising temperatures nationwide, while others flagged unexpectedly. Department stores led the way, with retailers like J.C. Penney, Macy’s and Nordstrom posting better-than-anticipated sales numbers, though Kohl’s fell short.

Discount retailers, on the other hand, saw sales fall short of expert forecasts, Marketwatch said. Target’s sales rose, as did those for Costco and BJ’s Wholesale, but those increases were less than they expected.

Marketwatch said that these results mean retailers will have to increase their promotions for the back-to-school season, which is the second-largest sales period after the holiday season.

A report in the financial times said that June was an important month because it comes in the middle of the quarter and numbers from it will determine whether retailers will have to significantly discount inventory to offload it before the end of July.