Year-over-year sales gains for the shops on the ActionWatch same-store retail panel improved again in March with revenues up 12.7%. This helped push up the growth for the full first quarter to 10.3%. The strongest growth numbers came from the ladies’ side with sales gains of nearly 12% in apparel and almost 43% in footwear.

Some of the best performing ladies’ apparel classes in the first quarter were shorts, non-denim pants, skirts, dresses and what we classify as "other shirts" which includes most sleeved tops that are not printed tees. On the men’s side, tanks performed the best in terms of sales growth although shorts and non-denim pants also had high growth numbers.

All footwear classes were either flat or up but ladies’ closed-toe shoes continued to be the star of the footwear show with truly massive sales gains. Men’s casual shoes also experienced high sales growth while skate shoes struggled.

As can be seen in the timeline graph, accessories started off the quarter poorly but improved substantially in February and March. Socks and sunglasses were the top accessory performers in terms of sales growth.

Overall it was a very good first quarter and a great way to start the year. There are some very interesting trends going on right now that will be fun to watch as the year progresses.