CHICAGO – August 5, 2008 - ShopperTrak RCT Corporation's National Retail Sales Estimate™ (NRSE) today reported that year-over-year retail sales for the week ending August 2 increased a slight 0.6 percent, while week-over-week sales increased 3.6 percent as compared to the previous week ending July 26.

Although the back-to-school shopping season officially kicked off last week, year-over-year retail sales performance was soft as consumers might be responding to more turbulent economic conditions as compared to the same time period in 2007. But, on a weekly comparison, it appears consumers started to respond to various sales and promotions intended to drive traffic to retail locations to encourage back to school spending.

"In today’s economic climate, retailers need to pay close attention the flat year-over-year retail sales growth experienced last week," said Bill Martin, co-founder of ShopperTrak. "But we expect further back-to-school promotions will drive both retail traffic and sales and we anticipate gains during the next couple of weeks as the season really hits high gear."

Developed by ShopperTrak, the NRSE provides a nationwide benchmark of retail sales. It is derived from the U.S. Commerce Department's GAFO (general merchandise, apparel, furniture, sporting goods, electronics, hobby, books and other related store sales) statistic, as well as ShopperTrak's proprietary industry intelligence on shopper movement and sales statistics. This gives retailers, investors and policy makers the most accurate and timely information on consumer trends available today.

A privately held entity, ShopperTrak leverages 20 years of retail expertise to be the industry's authority for information and analysis of the movement of shoppers in retail environments. ShopperTrak's cutting-edge shopper tracking products and indices offer retail intelligence solutions that enable companies to better understand retail trends and the impact of store and staff performance on company revenues. With more than 50,000 units installed in the world's best known retail outlets and malls, the company's solutions also provide a proven means for retailers to gauge labor efficiencies, advertising and marketing efforts, store design and remodeling programs, merchandise changes, associate training programs, and other budget-intensive strategic initiatives. For more information visit http://www.shoppertrak.com.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The data contained within this news release is the property of ShopperTrak RCT Corporation and may be reprinted, published or broadcast, provided proper credit is given to the National Retail Sales Estimate (NRSE) and ShopperTrak RCT Corporation as the supplier of the information. Please contact Aaron Martin at 312-943-9100 if you have any questions concerning the use of this data.