Despite the drop of its highly anticipated Jimmy Choo capsule collection, H&M's October sales slid onto the sales decline bandwagon for the third quarter, along with J.C. Penney and Abercrombie & Fitch.
Students came straight from the disco, Tokyo's shopping elite waited for days and Paris stores regimented operations with a color-coded wristband system, yet the international mayhem to grab a piece of Jimmy Choo for H&M was not enough to keep sales for the month in the black. The roughly 3% drop coincided closely with JC Penney's 3.2% dip in sales for the third quarter -- yet both major retailers are, for now, keeping a rosy outlook for the end of the year.
Abercrombie & Fitch, on the other hand, which includes the Hollister brand and children's line abercrombie, as well as soon-to-be-defunct Ruehl, suffered more drastic third-quarter sales declines close to 15%. As of now, reps for the brand say they're holding steady on the store's longstanding policy to, well, over-charge, stating that they sought to maintain their aspirational price points despite the fact that everyone is broke and will only buy things at a bargain. We're paraphrasing here, but you get the picture.
Maybe, just maybe folks will conjure up a good ol' holiday rally and pick things back up in the fourth.
