Kurt Barnard Sales Quotations

The potential for Web sales is tremendous and it carries the potential of completely altering and upsetting over the next few years all channels of retail selling.

With this kind of weather, we've now had this for some days, I think you'll find retail sales will reflect a cautious attitude on the part of consumers,

We're seeing clearance sales that are early by at least three to four weeks. Going back to the beginning of summer they had a lot of inventory on hand and they need to get rid of it, ... Second-quarter earnings are going to reflect the markdowns. Everybody has been caught in the downdraft.

There are a lot of companies out there whose essential business operating concept is past its prime and therefore their comparable sales are on a gradual decline.

No one should come to the conclusion, as some people have already done, that this is going to be a disastrous holiday sales season for retailers. For most, it's going to be a decent sales season, but it will fall for most below the levels achieved a year ago.

Retail sales will have taken a hit Thursday afternoon and then on Friday, when lots of people can't get around and the last thing on their minds would be going shopping.

Retail sales of Martha Stewart products won't suffer in a terminal way because right now Kmart needs Martha more than Martha needs Kmart. Her products are selling well because people really like them.

Halloween has become in recent times a little more of a retail-type holiday than you've seen it in decades past. It's becoming a little more important not just for sales of scary masks, but there generally is more traffic into the stores. It's sort of the beginning of fall, something like the precursor for what's to come.

I think the NRF forecast is hopefully optimistic. I don't see a pickup in sales until the pace of layoffs slows down.

I think the NRF forecast is hopefully optimistic, ... I don't see a pickup in sales until the pace of layoffs slows down.

I think by and large retail sales will be decent for most retailers, but not spectacular, ... Most will come in with same-store sales very much below the formidably high same-store sales of last year.

plays itself out on Main Street U.S.A. in the form of muted retail sales.

June was a difficult month for retailers and it's also typically a month during which comparable sales are driven by discount sales.

July sales numbers are not going to be very good, maybe a tad better than they would have been without the checks,

Most retail sales were relatively decent, but were achieved with the help of deep markdowns which will show up as heavy pressure on gross margins, and that is going to be reflected in the earnings,

The anecdotal evidence would indicate that traffic was not excessively busy. And what consumers were looking for was the sales sign. They looked at the price tag before they looked at the product.

The anecdotal evidence would indicate that traffic was not excessively busy, ... And what consumers were looking for was the sales sign. They looked at the price tag before they looked at the product.

You just can't compare the impact of a large number of sales of flashlights, which may cost $2 to $4, with lost sales, for example, of hundreds of pairs of shoes, each costing $50 to $200.

While it's true that Sears is stuck in a sales slump for a long time, the retailer has also been in a restructuring mode, ... By getting rid of the credit business, it can finally devote all its resources to its core business. I'm convinced Sears will deliver impressive results in the next six to 12 months.

Bigger is better. Bigger offers more opportunities for increasing sales volume and increasing the customer base. It would give them an opportunity to improve their comparable sales performance.

February sales were very strong, stronger than anticipated in many instances. I will tell you that if you were a retailer in February and did not do very well, you stood out like a sore thumb. We're telling our clients that the first half of this year will continue to be marked by continued strong spending at the retail cash register.

The sales clear evidence of modest consumer spending slow down. We expect a decent holiday sales season, but an unspectacular one. The last three have been spectacular, particularly the last one.

The thing that drives retail sales most and best is job availability and the ease of obtaining new jobs. Both of these factors are absent at the present time. It may not be until the end of the year that we see job growth.

Sales results were not exactly exceptional and they do represent a slowdown in the overall economy,

Demand is great simply because home sales have been going through the roof, and every time a home is occupied for the first time, usually tens of thousands of dollars are spent on furnishing it and refurbishing it,

As consumers become more comfortable with buying from the computer, ... and this new generation that has grown up with the computer comes of age, what we will see is huge dollar amounts of retail sales being transacted on the Web and we will see a lot of stores become increasingly Web stores.

Americans have become very cautious spenders, and that was extremely evident in May. Retail sales will continue to advance, but very slowly, very cautiously.

It wasn't surprising really. The August same-store numbers really confirm the trend of slowing retail sales and consumer spending, ... August was the back-to-school that wasn't. August and back-to-school doesn't quite have the importance it did a decade ago, but outside of that make no mistake, consumer spending has slowed down and Americans are tapped out.

It was disappointing. A lot of stores told us that when they opened at 7 or 8 in the morning with special deals good for two hours, crowds were beginning to mass. But at the stroke of 9, when those sales were supposed to end, the crowds disappeared like a snowflake in the palm of your hand.

It was really the department store chains and the apparel retailers that took it on the chin with weak January sales results. But a couple of names in those two groups are guiding higher than expected, predicated on expectations of lower promotional activity going into spring.

Consumer spending is heavily devoted to hard goods. That implies for the most part that home-oriented things have been doing well for some time, ... Home sales have been skyrocketing. Every time a home changes hands, tens of thousands of dollars are spent on decorating, furnishings, adding new kitchens and bathrooms.

These two companies give a must-have lesson for all retailers. Shaper Image has seen sales jump in the double-digits because they keep innovating and offering new, fun and useful products.

These two companies gave a must-have lesson for all retailers, Sharper Image combed the globe for unusual and exciting products that weren't run-off-the-mill ... Retailers made the mistake of taking customers for granted and the payoff came two weeks ago in much weaker Christmas sales because of ho-hum kind of merchandise.

These two companies gave a must-have lesson for all retailers, ... Sharper Image combed the globe for unusual and exciting products that weren't run-off-the-mill ... Retailers made the mistake of taking customers for granted and the payoff came two weeks ago in much weaker Christmas sales because of ho-hum kind of merchandise.

Their sales are terrible and their efforts to come up with newness that appeals to consumers and brings them back into the stores are failing. There's absolutely no indication that they have found a road back to health, and while they have very little debt, they do have too many stores. With that kind of a background, it's not difficult to envision a bankruptcy in the foreseeable future.

High-end stores depend on continued spending from clients that over the past four years have amassed considerable wealth. Sales at upscale stores like Saks and Neiman Marcus are also going strong because the stock market has been very customer friendly to this group.

All I can tell you is that we've had some information that April retail sales were somewhat disappointing for some chains,