Retailers stunned by September sales loses

Double-digit drop-offs even hit luxury chains Sales at some of the nation's best-known retailers fell by double digits in September, highlighting the rapid deterioration of the economy and raising fresh questions about how many of those chains can survive. Retail analysts and executives said they had not seen such a rapid slowdown in consumer spending since the nation's last deep recession in the early 1980s. Retail executives, though braced for bad news, were stunned at the magnitude of the drop-offs reported yesterday. Retailers high and low – such as Nordstrom, J.C. Penney and Kohl's – lowered their earnings projections. September sales for stores open at least a year, known as same-store sales, a barometer of retail health, plunged 14.8 percent at Stein Mart, an off-price department store. That chain, like many others,... [read full story]