Sep. 4--It's another potentially positive economic indicator: Target Corp. reported Thursday that more shoppers roamed the aisles of its discount stores last month than turned out earlier this year.

Those shoppers remained reluctant to spend, however, and that drove the Minneapolis-based company's August sales down 2.9 percent at stores open at least a year; but that was better than expected. Analysts had predicted a 5.1 percent decline.

Customer traffic was flat from a year earlier, but that was "a meaningful improvement from second-quarter trends," Target Chief Executive Gregg Steinhafel said in a statement.

Not everyone's impressed.

Thirty percent more back-to-school shoppers were headed to Target stores last month in Britt Beemer's consumer surveys, so he expected better results. Some of those shoppers would have hit J.C. Penney or Kohl's or teen retailers such as Abercrombie & Fitch, said Beemer, chairman of America's Research Group, a consumer-research company in Charleston, S.C.

"Even though they got all those extra shoppers, they still couldn't get positive numbers," Beemer said.

Strong sellers for Target included health care products, electronics, household/personal/baby merchandise and back-to-school supplies. Men's and women's apparel sales continued to be weak, though jewelry and accessories sales were better than average.

Strapped shoppers continue to spend less at Target and other stores as unemployment remains high and the economy uncertain. Overall, sales remain weak for the retailers who reported August data on Thursday. Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer and Target's much larger discount rival, didn't report August sales data.

More of the same is expected this month. Target expects a September same-store sales decline in the low- to midsingle-digit range.

"There's nothing in our research that shows consumers are going to feel any better," Beemer said.

A monthly compilation of 32 retailers' sales by the International Council of Shopping Centers and Goldman Sachs showed sales in established stores fell 2 percent in August compared with the same period a year ago. That was better than the 3.5 percent to 4 percent drop analysts forecast.

About half of retailers reporting did worse than analysts expected.

ShopperTrak RCT, a Chicago-based research company that tracks customer traffic at more than 45,000 stores, said foot traffic figures for back-to-school are in line with its forecast of a 10 percent drop from last year.

Besides Target, the 5 percent increase at TJX Cos., which operates the Marshall's and TJMaxx chains, also beat expectations. Kohl's Corp. said Thursday that sales at stores open at least a year edged up 0.2 percent in August, beating the 1.7 percent decline projected by analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.

Macy's Inc. reported an 8.1 percent decline in sales at established stores. Gap Inc. reported lower sales but beat expectations. The teen sector was weak. Abercrombie & Fitch reported a 29 percent drop, bigger than expected.

Associated Press reports were used in this story. Gita Sitaramiah can be reached at 651-228-5472.

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