Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

For those who still cling to the Tinkerbell belief that consumers will shun any retailers who are shown to not protect their data, TJX’s latest sales figures will deliver a rude awakening.

This concept is not new, as ample evidence already existed that consumers don’t really care about security, but when TJX reported Thursday that its April sales increased another 2 percent, to $1.28 billion, the conclusion became unavoidable. More importantly, for the thirteen weeks ended May 5, 2007, sales reached $4.2 billion, a 7 percent increase over last year’s $3.9 billion. Even with those healthy increases, TJX CEO Carol Meyrowitz said the sales were below her expectation, mostly because of weather. If they were going to feel a consumer backlash, it would have been evident months ago, let alone now.