As a barometer of business, department store sales have been signaling trouble ahead. For six consecutive weeks sales have been below those of 1948. Last week the spell was broken.
In Manhattan, Gimbels threw a crowd-catching sale of summer furnitureĀand put thousands of Easter hats on the counters at $5 and up. In San Francisco, the City of Paris store slashed prices a third to a half on $160,000 worth of draperies. Four big carpetmakers (Bigelow-Sanford, Alexander Smith, Mohawk and James Lees & Sons) cut prices from 10% to 20%. Thanks to such measures and a burst of fair weather...