Retailers Mum On How Their Much-Touted Online Channels Fared

It is still a brick-and-mortar world for traditional retailers who offered nary a word about how their online businesses performed when they posted December same-store sales on Thursday.

Many major retailers spent a significant amount of time and money promoting their Web sites during the holiday season, offering everything from free shipping to online-only coupons to in-store pick-ups of products.

This year was more of an image builder for brick-and-mortar stores, said Michael Tsiros, chairman of the marketing department at the University of Miami School of Business Administration. However, overall, online shopping accounts for less than 5% of all retail purchases, excluding gas and food.

"They wanted to show they have a presence, and doing so may actually have cost them more than the sales they received," he said

Just two retailers talked about their online sales based on a review of more than two dozen news releases and conference-call transcripts from companies that reported holiday sales figures on Thursday, with neither company providing a dollar figure.

Macy's Inc. (M), which raised guidance in tandem with its report, said combined online sales at its macys.com and bloomingdales.com units rose 29.4% in December and 19.3% for the year to date.

J.C. Penney Co. (JCP) said Internet sales rose 6.3% in December, their best gain of the year, with several apparel divisions seeing double-digit increases. Order increases were in the "high-teens" during key holiday shopping periods including Black Friday weekend and the week before Christmas, J.C. Penney said.

Retailers may be reluctant to be more forthcoming or give actual figures right now because online makes up so little of their sales, no matter how largely they promote their sites, analysts say.

Monthly same-store-sales incorporate the revenue retailers receive from their online businesses, which they have been building up over the past year as a way of being current with purchasing trends and also building broader loyalty with shoppers.

But some of the most aggressive marketers of their online sites during the holiday season, including Sears Holdings Corp. (SHLD), Target Corp. (TGT), Saks Inc. (SKS) and Aeropostale Inc. (ARO), said nothing at all about how they fared over the period.

Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (ANF) said only in its conference call that its holiday promotions included the receipt of a $50 gift card for every $200 purchase online from Dec. 8 through Dec. 23.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) stopped issuing same-store sales reports last year but in response to a query said it was "very pleased" with its holiday performance online and that the most popular categories included electronics, toys and video games.

-Karen Talley, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2196; karen.talley@dowjones.com

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