U.S. chain store sales for October fell by 0.9 percent on a year-over-year, same-store basis according to the International Council of Shopping Centers.

“The October retail environment was simply awful with a high degree of uncertainty around the financial markets, consumers put off any discretionary spending resulting in exceedingly weak October sales results,” said Michael P. Niemira, ICSC chief economist and director of research. “Although the final number was only slightly below our forecast range for the month, ICSC Research is now paring its holiday forecast to the low end of our forecast range.”

Niemira added that ICSC projects that industry sales will grow by 1 percent for November and December combined.

ICSC Chain Store Sales Trends is a monthly report on the U.S. retail industry’s sales performance based on an ICSC preliminary compilation of publicly-available sales for 36 chain stores during the month of September. Industry sales aggregates are compiled for “comparable-store” or “same-store” sales and for total store sales. Those data are presented as an index with a 1977=100 base. Same-store sales are also compiled for specialized-industry groupings, which include aggregates for apparel chain stores, department stores, discount stores, drug stores, footwear stores, furniture chain stores and wholesale clubs.

JCK