Luxury retailer David Jones reported on Thursday sales result that best reflects the generally sombre mood of the local retail industry - gloomy, and its declining numbers offered a snapshot of what to expect for the rest of the year.

David Jones chief executive Paul Zahra would love display some amount of optimism but he allowed that the domestic retail picture offers few reasons to rejoice despite some form of respite for local retailers in the last quarter of 2011.

"Trading conditions continue to reflect the uncertainty in the macro-economic environment with conservative consumer shopping continuing and no material signs that this is changing," Zahra said in a statement.

Still what David Jones had seen in December last year and January this year were for the most part encouraging enough as holiday shopping picked up in the last month of 2011 and its residue felt until the end of last month.

"We did see an improvement in December 2011 and January 2012, compared to October 2011 and November 2011, which, in turn, were better than August 2011 and September 2011," the high-end retailer said.

But total sales actually retreated in the three months ending in January by 3.1 percent to $598.5 million, coming from the $617.6 million posted in the same period in the previous year.

Also, David Jones' like-for-like performance within the period shrunk by 2.4 percent, Zahra said, which pretty much dictates the overall sales movement of the company in the quarter.

As such, David Jones will remain on track to achieve its earlier performance guidance, with profit dips of up to 20 percent when pitted with what was achieved last year.

"The company reaffirms its first-half of fiscal 2012 profit after tax guidance of minus 15 per cent to minus 20 per cent and expects the current challenging retail conditions to continue throughout calendar 2012," David Jones said.

That target will be backed by considerable pick up seen in the recent months, Zahra said, adding that the company "experienced improving month-on-month trading performance throughout the second quarter although challenging trading conditions continued."

While the outlook may not be too rosy, investors were somewhat buoyed by the results so far as David Jones saw its shares soaring by 5.8 percent to $2.72, according to BusinessDay on Thursday.

The rise was posted amidst David Jones' revelation that its core sales numbers have been receding by 11 percent as of the first quarter, leading to a first half sales decline of 6.6 percent to $1.012 billion.

Yet amidst all the difficulties, Zahra noted that "there was an improvement in the performance of our high-value demographic stores compared to the first quarter of fiscal 2012."

He cited the consistent performance of David Jones outlets across Australia and inventories have been moving at projected pace.

"We are pleased with the good progress we are making in clearing our excess inventory and whilst we are confident that this will be cleared in full year 2012," Zahra said.

"This will have an impact on our gross profit margin performance in both the first and second half of fiscal 2012," he added.