Sales Up for Week Ending Feb. 23

Chicago ShopperTrak RCT Corp.'s National Retail Sales Estimate, a national benchmark of retail sales, reported on Tuesday that sales for the week ending Feb. 23 increased a slight 2.0% as compared to the same time period in 2007.

The report also found that both year-over-year and week-over-week sales returned to more seasonal levels last week following the strong increase retailers experienced the previous week (ending Feb. 19) which contained both Valentine’s and President’s Day holiday spending.

On a week-over-week comparison, sales for the week ending Feb. 23 slipped 5.4% as compared to the previous week ending Feb. 16.

Nevertheless, so far in 2008, ShopperTrak has measured an increase in seven out of eight possible weeks.

ShopperTrak also reported that, to date, average weekly sales for February vs. last year are up 3.1%.