Sales In Stores

Merry-Go-Round Enterprises Inc., reeling under declining sales and the cost of bankruptcy, is now plagued with another problem: fear.Sources within the company and industry observers say the fashion retailer, looking to cut its losses, is considering cutting the payroll and closing more stores.Company spokesman Michael W. Kempner said yesterday, "As a company policy, we don't respond to rumors, and these are rumors."Layoffs, sources said, would affect not only store clerks and managers but possibly upward of 100 workers at corporate headquarters, which had a payroll of about 600 at the beginning of the year.

Another month, another drop in sales.Joppa-based Merry-Go-Round Enterprises Inc. reported that September sales, drained by the closing of unprofitable stores, fell 23 percent to $56.5 million, compared with $73.2 million over the same period last year.Back-to-school revenue did little to boost sales in stores open at least a year, an important measure of performance, which fell 10 percent.Company officials could not be reached for comment, but analysts detected some potential upside in the latest figures for Merry-Go-Round, an apparel chain of 955 stores selling contemporary fashions for young men and women.

February is usually a slow month for retailers. But shoppers avoided stores even more than normal last month, results yesterday from major chains show.Retail experts blamed low inventory levels, rising interest rates and continued lack of interest in apparel. February's lackluster showing may also be a result of January, when vigorous post-holiday promotions at some chains increased revenue, analysts said."The trend in apparel being somewhat weak has continued," said Sally Wallick, who follows retailers for Legg Mason Inc., a Baltimore investment house.

U.S. retailers sent conflicting signals in September; yesterday they reported modest monthly sales gains and losses that analysts said could spell another tepid Christmas season."

A Business section article in some editions of The Sun yesterday incorrectly identified the employer of financial analyst Kenneth M. Gassman. Mr. Gassman works for Davenport & Co. in Richmond, Va.The Sun regrets the error.Jos. A. Bank Clothiers Inc. knitted up its raveled revenue last quarter, boosting same-store sales by a robust 8.2 percent when other menswear retailers struggled.The strong results for the three months ended Jan. 28 contrasted sharply with those of Bank's previous quarter, when same-store sales fell by 7.6 percent, causing the company's stock price to slip from $5.75 per share to the $4 range.

Maryland's holiday retail season appears to be off to a solid start, with several surveys showing shoppers thus far spending more this year than last.TeleCheck Services said Maryland's retail sales increased by 3.8 percent in November, while sales over the Thanksgiving shopping weekend increased by a less robust 1.1 percent in Maryland and 2.8 percent in Baltimore. The November figures for Maryland were better than the national average of 2.1 percent.The company's data is based on a comparison of the dollar volume of authorized checks written by consumers at about 20,000 stores nationwide.

Good. Bad. Or middling.Those are the ideas on how sales will shake out during the back-to-school selling season, perhaps the most important time for retailers other than Christmas -- although even that distinction is now in doubt."

DETROIT -- It's called the blue-light-special machine, but it doesn't look anything like K mart's legendary flashing beacon atop a movable cart.Yet customers are flocking toward it just as eagerly as toward the original, which store managers have used for years to announce unadvertised, 15-minute specials.The updated version is a vending machine near the store entrance that dispenses coupons for everything from basketballs to blue jeans.K mart began testing the machines last May at a handful of Detroit-area stores.

They're battling it out with hammers and chains saws in Glen Burnie.Home Depot, the nation's largest do-it-yourself retailer, and Hechinger, the regional hardware heavyweight, have been going head-to-head there since June. So far, they both appear to be winning. The losers, apparently, are everybody else in the business.Hechinger began mounting an aggressive defense of its turf even before the Atlanta-based behemoth moved into the Baltimore-Washington market.In March, Hechinger introduced its new Home Projects Center format -- a significant departure from the traditional Hechinger floor plan -- at its Glen Burnie store on Ritchie Highway, barely a mile from the gigantic Home Depot at Route 10 and New Ordnance Road.

Fresh Fields Inc., a jazzy health-food supermarket chain that opened its first Baltimore store amid great fanfare last month, has been gobbled up by its natural-food nemesis, Whole Foods Market Inc., in a stock merger valued at about $135 million, the companies announced yesterday.As in banking, telecommunications and broadcasting, the two companies concluded that bigger is better."It made sense business-wise to sell, so they did," said analyst Matthew Patsky of Adams Harkness & Hill in Boston.