{"id":8428,"date":"2012-03-14T04:00:14","date_gmt":"2012-03-14T08:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smarttan.com\/news\/?p=8428"},"modified":"2012-03-13T21:53:40","modified_gmt":"2012-03-14T01:53:40","slug":"feb-sales-gains-stoke-optimism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.smarttan.com\/index.php\/feb-sales-gains-stoke-optimism\/","title":{"rendered":"Feb. Sales Gains Stoke Optimism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Retailers looking for strong signs that consumers are spending got another one this week, as the Commerce Department reported that retail sales in February increased 1.1 percent over 2011 \u2014 including strong gains in automobile purchases.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFebruary sales at U.S. retailers jumped at the fastest pace in five months and January&#8217;s lackluster sales were revised higher, showing that consumers remain willing to spend as the economy appears to pick up steam,\u201d NASDAQ.com reported on Tuesday, noting that increases in auto purchases show that consumers are willing to start loosening up purse-strings for major purchases.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEarlier this month when retailers posted same-store sales results for February, more than 80% beat expectations,\u201d The Wall Street Journal\u2019s MarketWatch reported on Tuesday. \u201cIn all, among 18 retailers that have reported their results, sales rose 6.5%, beating estimates by 3 percentage points and marking the industry\u2019s best performance since June, according to Retail Metrics.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The MarketWatch report acknowledged that higher gas prices contribute to increases in sale, but that there are other factors in play as well. \u201cThe pleasant weather, which curbed spending on seasonal merchandise like salt and shovels, likely kept people more optimistic and open to spending on spring items. And we also didn\u2019t see widespread closures due to inclement weather like we did last year. &#8230;The robust retail sales results come on the heels of an upbeat jobs report on Friday, which showed the best U.S. employment growth in 12 years, capping off about six months (of job growth).\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, a New York Times\/CBS News poll showed that 75 percent of Americans believe the financial picture ranges from \u201cfairly bad\u201d to \u201cvery bad\u201d even if a majority believe things are getting better, MarketWatch reported.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStill, consumers showed last month that they were willing to spend more on cars, clothes and dining out, even as gas prices increased,\u201d MarketWatch reported. Their report quotes Wells-Fargo Securities Senior Economist Mark Vitner saying, &#8220;Ordinarily, rising gas prices take a toll on consumer confidence. But so far most measures of consumer sentiment continue to rise, as equity markets remain strong and the labor market continues to improve.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A SmartTan.com poll released earlier this week showed that 58 percent of tanning businesses say their financial performance for the first two months of 2012 was better than 2011.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.marketwatch.com\/story\/retail-sales-recovery-hopes-persist-2012-03-13?link=MW_latest_news\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Click here to read the MarketWatch report.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nasdaq.com\/article\/us-feb-retail-sales-up-11-inventories-climb-in-jan-20120313-00988\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Click here to read the NASDAQ.com report.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/smarttan.com\/news\/index.php\/salons-report-strong-2012-poll\/\"><strong>Click here to read the SmartTan.com poll.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Retailers looking for strong signs that consumers are spending got another one this week, as the Commerce Department reported that retail sales in February increased 1.1 percent over 2011 \u2014 including strong gains in automobile purchases. \u201cFebruary sales at U.S. retailers jumped at the fastest pace in five months and January&#8217;s lackluster sales were revised [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Feb. Sales Gains Stoke Optimism - Smart Tan News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Retailers looking for strong signs that consumers are spending got another one this week, as the Commerce Department reported that retail sales in February increased 1.1 percent over 2011 \u2014 including strong gains in automobile purchases.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.smarttan.com\/index.php\/feb-sales-gains-stoke-optimism\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Feb. 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