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NEW YORK — Retailers said sales increased in September, buoyed by back-to-school shopping and cooler weather that triggered demand for fall merchandise.
Retailers said sales increased in September, buoyed by back-to-school shopping and cooler weather that triggered demand for fall merchandise.
September same-store sales rose 5% from a year earlier, according to a retail index maintained by research firm Retail Metrics LLC. The index showed a strong start to the month, largely due to B-T-S shopping.
September traditionally is a transition month, with B-T-S over and the holiday shopping not yet begun.
Costco Wholesale Corp. said U.S. same-store sales rose 6% in September, excluding the negative impacts of foreign exchange and gasoline prices. Sales at stores in the Midwest and Southeast led the gains, Costco said. The Issaquah, Wash., company reported comparable-store gains “in the high-single digits” for fresh food, aided by higher prices. Costco said September comparable-store gains for food, sundries and soft lines such as apparel, footwear and accessories were in the mid-single digits.
Rite Aid Corp. said same-store sales rose 5.1% in September.
The drug store operator said front-end same-store sales were up 2.3% in the period.
Pharmacy same-store sales were up 6.3%, a gain curbed by what the Camp Hill, Pa.-based company said was a negative impact of 225 basis points from the introduction of new generic drugs. Prescription count increased 4.4% from the previous year.
Walgreen Co. said September sales rose 9.4% to nearly $6.5 billion. Sales at stores open a least a year rose 7.9% in the period. Front-end comparable-store sales were up 1.7%, despite a 2.7% decline in customer traffic. Walgreens said basket size increased in the period by 4.4%.
The Deerfield, Ill.-based company said same-store pharmacy sales in September rose 11.3%, aided by an additional day this year and one fewer Sunday than in the year-earlier period. Pharmacy sales accounted for 67.8% of Walgreens’ total sales in September.
Analysts cited a decline in the official jobless rate and lower gasoline prices as catalysts for some of the increased spending in September.
Store traffic in September “decreased substantially” from a year earlier, according to Euclid, a provider of in-store analytics. “However, healthier economic conditions and less government disruption led to significant improvements in duration and bounce rate,” Euclid reported.
