NEW YORK (April 6, 2010) – With seasonal temperatures decisively turning warmer and Easter shopping at hand, consumers were in the mood to shop and spend over the last week as retailers saw a strong 4.7 percent increase year-over-year and the hefty 2.1 percent week-over-week increase according to the ICSC-Goldman Sachs weekly sales index for the period ending April 3

“The calendar shift due to the earlier Easter this year versus last year (April 4, 2010 vs. April 12, 2009) caused sales to surge on an unadjusted basis, but even on a seasonally-adjusted basis, sales were quite strong as well,” said Michael Niemira, ICSC director of research and chief economist. “As a result ICSC Research has revised its monthly expectation to be more in line with the 1994 seasonal pattern for chain store sales growth when there was a substantial calendar lift from the earlier Easter. ICSC Research now expects March sales will increase by 8.0 to 10.0 percent with about six percentage points of year-over-year growth attributed to the calendar shift,” Niemira added.

Please note that ICSC will be releasing monthly retail sales figures for March on Thursday, April 8, 2010.

The Weekly Chain Store Sales Snapshot is produced by the International Council of Shopping Centers and Goldman Sachs. This index measures U.S. nominal same-store or comparable-store sales excluding restaurant and vehicle demand. The weekly index is constructed as a sales-weighted geometric average growth rate to preserve long-term consistency and is statistically benchmarked to a broad-based monthly retail industry sales aggregate that currently represents approximately 40 retail chain stores, which also is compiled by ICSC. A representative sample of those major retailers has been used as a control group to extrapolate the weekly sales index. As such, the weekly index statistically represents industry sales and is not just a sum of sales for a handful of retailers. The standard period used for the index is Sunday through Saturday, even though some retailers use a different weekly accounting period. The weekly sales index is presented on an adjusted basis to account for normal seasonality and to counter other data anomalies. Weekly seasonal adjustment is at best difficult for chain store sales given that retailers can and often do shift promotions to counter typical shifts in the calendar. Nonetheless, the approach to weekly seasonal adjustment used follows from the Piser Method, which was popular in the early 1930s and became the standard for weekly adjustment.

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. is a bank holding company and a leading global investment banking, securities and investment management firm. Goldman Sachs provides a wide range of services worldwide to a substantial and diversified client base that includes corporations, financial institutions, governments and high net worth individuals. Founded in 1869, the firm is headquartered in New York and maintains offices in London, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Hong Kong and other major financial centers around the world.

Founded in 1957, ICSC is the premier global trade association of the shopping center industry. Its 60,000 members in over 90 countries include shopping center owners, developers, managers, marketing specialists, investors, retailers and brokers, as well as academics and public officials.