Good garden business

Last year (to 3 January 2004) the US trading group Sears recorded sales of US $ 31.842 bn (€ 25.547 bn) in its retail division, or 1.2 per cent up compared with 2002. In the fourth quarter a sales volume of US $ 10.1 bn (€ 8.1 bn) resulted in growth of 3.6 per cent. However, these figures included one week more than the final quarter of 2002. In like-for-like terms and excluding this extra week, sales were down by 2.1 per cent. According to information from the company, good results with exceptional sales figures in all major product groups were achieved in the garden business.