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August Sales Flourish
September 9, 2005
ShopperTrak's Bill Martin on CNBC
MICHELE CARUSO-CABRERA, host:
You might call it a perfect storm hitting the retail industry. Economic shocks at the hand of Katrina's destruction and surging prices at the pump is a result as well. How is the consumer holding up?
Joining us now for a first on CNBC to release his firm's latest retail figures is Bill Martin. He is co-founder of ShopperTrak, joining us from Chicago. Nice to have you here, Mr. Martin.
Mr. BILL MARTIN (Co-founder of ShopperTrak): Good morning, Michele. It's nice to see you again.
CARUSO-CABRERA: Let's get right to the numbers here. How did retail sales fare in the month of August?
Mr. MARTIN: Well, August is a continuing show of strength for 2005. We saw a 5.9 percent increase over the same month from last year. And this is good. If the trend continues as this is 35 out of 36 weeks we've seen this year an increase in retail sales. And so, the number is pretty strong.
CARUSO-CABRERA: Katrina obviously hit the South very hard. Many fear ripple effects. What can you tell us about that last week of August and what effect if any it had?
Mr. MARTIN: Well, in the week ending September 3rd we saw a downturn of 3.9 percent from the previous week, and that's to be expected as back to school winds down. But we did see that it was a 4 percent increase over the same time last year. And the fact that Katrina came at the end of the month didn't have much impact on August, but obviously it's going to have some impact.
CARUSO-CABRERA: I would imagine in September when we have you here next month. What's your sense of the health of the consumer right now, especially in the wake of the higher gasoline prices that they're facing because of Hurricane Katrina?
Mr. MARTIN: Well, it's pretty interesting. The hurricane is going to have--you know, for every action there is an opposite reaction. While we're going to see some drop in the retail sales in the South, actually some of the retailers will do very well as the infrastructure comes back together.
Your Wal-Marts and your home improvement retailers will see a demand increase in that arena. And so, you'll see some positive stuff there. But when you see the fashion consumer and the luxury goods they won't fare as well over the next 18 months.
CARUSO-CABRERA: Yeah, often is the case it's often more of a shift instead of a complete decline.
Mr. MARTIN: Exactly.
CARUSO-CABRERA: OK, thank you, Mr. Martin.
Mr. MARTIN: Thank you, Michele.
CARUSO-CABRERA: Bill Martin is co-founder of ShopperTrak.
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