Several consumer spending reports worth noting came out in the last several weeks, including TNS Retail Forward's composite retail sales number for 40 large department and discount chains.

As a group, the 40 retailers' comparable store sales (stores open at least one year) for the month of March fell 0.8% from the composite sales number reported in February, and 0.8% from March results a year ago.

Included in those 40 stores are several of the department and discount chains that landed on our 2008 list of the Top 50 Home Accent Retailers, an annual ranking based on sales volume that publishes in our August issue. Next month, you'll have an opportunity to join us in honoring the success and staying power of the smaller independents when our annual 50 Retail Stars list publishes. But for now here's a look at how things are going for a few of the bigger guys:

No. 1-ranked Wal-Mart (responsible for about $6.8 billion in U.S. home accent sales in 2007) grew its comparable-store traffic for the sixth consecutive quarter, and grew sales 0.6% over last March, some of which represents a slight increase in its home category. March comp-store sales also edged upward, by 2%, at No. 19-ranked TJX Cos. (TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Homegoods) and by 1.3% at Sam's Club.

No. 2 on our 2008 Top 50 Home Accents Retailers list, Target ($4.2 billion in 2007 home accents sales), reported a 6.3% drop in comp-store sales for March with Target execs noting an impact from this year's calendar shift of the Easter shopping season into April.

Mary Brett Whitfield, senior vice president at Retail Forward, agrees that the calendar shift is worth noting. “After some encouraging results last month, shopper anxiety reemerged in March,” she said. “Despite shoppers' plans to rein in spending on apparel and home-related purchases, the calendar shift of Easter to April this year should benefit some retailers next month.”

Also down in comp-store sales for March were No. 6-ranked Macy's (9.2%), No. 20-ranked JCPenney (7.2%), and No. 24-ranked Costco (5%), which just announced it would be closing its two Costco Home stores in Kirkland, Wash., and Tempe, Ariz., in July.

Luxury retailers really took a hit last month. March comp-store sales declined 29.9% at number 46-ranked Neiman Marcus Group and 23.6% at Saks, not one of our Top 50 but included in Retail Forward's composite number.

No. 5 on our Top 50 list, Bed Bath & Beyond, ended its 2008 fiscal fourth quarter on Feb. 28 with a comp-store sales drop of 4.3% from the sales reported for the same period a year ago, and saw comp-store sales for fiscal year 2008 decrease by about 2.4% compared to the year before.

Retail Forward also monitors the consumer shopping pulse with its monthly ShopperScape survey. The latest, from shoppers surveyed in March, reveals they'll be spending less on home improvement projects this spring than on gardening/landscaping projects, some of that due to rising interest in vegetable gardening as a source of savings.

About 44% of the shoppers surveyed plan to spend about the same amount on gardening/landscaping as they did last year, 41% plan to spend less and 15% plan to spend more. When it comes to the home, 36% said they'll spend about the same amount this spring as they did last year, 48% will spend less and 17% will spend more.

Growing concern about job security, household income and the value of investment portfolios are, of course, driving shoppers' feelings about near-term spending, with 28% feeling worse about job security now than they did in March a year ago, 32% feeling worse about household income, 22% feeling more pinched by credit card debt.

According to the ShopperScape survey, a majority of the shoppers, 54%, say they're worse off than a year ago with regard to the value of their household members' investments. Only about a quarter think that the recently passed economic stimulus package will improve their own household's economic situation.

That pessimism was reflected in a report earlier this week by the Federal Reserve that showed consumer credit and charge card borrowing in February declined at an annual rate of 9.7% or $7.8 billion, the steepest drop in percentage since 1978 and in dollars since federal records began tracking it in 1968.

A report by the Commerce Department, also released earlier this month, provided a glint of hope with a report that the wholesale sales level rose 0.6% in February, the first increase since June, indicating that retailers appear to be replenishing their dwindling stock. Distributors' wholesale inventories shrunk 1.5% in February, the steepest drop since January 1992 and more than double analysts' expectations.

Granted, some of those reductions are due to factories producing fewer goods, but some economists think this inventory “adjusting” could be setting the stage for the beginning of a rebound later this year.

Maybe I'm grasping at straws, but with wholesale inventories making up about 25% of all business stockpiles, factories holding another third and retailers holding the rest, I'll use that bit of hope here as a positive note to end on.

To comment on this story, please write to me at susan.dickenson@reedbusiness.com or share your thoughts on my blog at HomeAccentsToday.com.