For most retailers, the month's sales gains over 1987 were the best of the year.

One bright spot for the company was its wireless operations, which reported a sales gain of 11.4 percent.

In both months, however, the sales gains were led by high gasoline prices, rather than volume.

Several retailers continued to report sales gains well under the rate of inflation, which has been 4.5 percent so far this year.

Ford executives said last month's sales gains gave it a push into 1997.

Women are behind some of the industry's sales gains.

Such a sales gain is at the high end of the company's forecast.

"Increased traffic accounts for a large amount of our sales gains."

Despite the sales gains, though, foreign expansion is hurting the bottom line in the short term.

The company attributed the increase to strong sales gains in Europe and reduced costs.