Macy’s cuts sales forecast as department stores struggle to draw shoppers

Macy's cut its full-year sales forecast Wednesday, as the department store operator said it is contending with selective shoppers and more promotions.

The retailer posted a mixed quarter, as it topped Wall Street's earnings expectations but missed on revenue.

Macy's said it now anticipates net sales of between $22.1 billion and $22.4 billion, which is lower than the $22.3 billion to $22.9 billion range it had previously anticipated. That also would be a year-over-year decline from the $23.09 billion it reported in fiscal 2023.

Macy's expects comparable sales, which take out the impact of store openings and closures, to range from a decrease of about 2% to a decline of about 0.5%. It had previously expected comparable sales to range from a decline of about 1% to a gain of 1.5%. That metric includes owned and licensed sales, which encompasses merchandise that Macy's owns and items from brands that pay for space within its stores, along with Macy's third-party online marketplace.

The department store operator said in a news release that the new outlook range "gives the flexibility to address the ongoing uncertainty in the discretionary consumer market."

In an interview with CNBC, CEO Tony Spring said customers aren't spending as freely across all of Macy's brands — even higher-end department store Bloomingdale's.

"We see that there is definitely a softness, a carefulness, a delay in the conversion of purchasing," he said. "And people on the things that they want, the things that are priced sharply, on the newness, they're responding, but even the affluent consumer is not spending like they were a year ago."

Here's what Macy's reported for the fiscal second quarter compared with what Wall Street expected, based on a survey of