The Great Indoors bucks the trend

Contrary to the company-wide downward trend in June, The Great Indoors format of the US retail group Sears recorded sales growth over this period. Nevertheless, during the first half of 2004 (to 3 July) Sears’ sales were still 2.8 per cent lower than in the same period last year. Like-for-like sales to the amount of US $ 10.678 bn (€ 8.604 bn) remained 1.6 per cent below comparable figures for 2003. Problems were caused for the company by the unusually cold weather in June.