“We head into the holidays with some momentum of some positive trends,” said Karen Hoguet, Macy’s chief financial officer, on a conference call with investors.

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That includes healthier sales of everything from denim to dresses to kids’ clothes. Macy’s registered a 3.5 percent increase on a metric known as “average unit retail,” which essentially means it was making more sales without having to resort to discounting. This typically is an indication that a retailer did a better job of lining its shelves with merchandise that people actually wanted to buy, and it can be a sign the store did a better job of managing inventory.

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The holiday season will soon provide a fresh test of its inventory planning. Last year, when much of the country experienced T-shirt weather well into December, Macy’s struggled mightily to sell coats, gloves, scarves and other winter apparel. It was then stuck having to slash prices heavily on those items to clear them from shelves.

This time around, Hoguet said they thought of their planning this way: They looked at last year and a colder year and tried to take an average of the two.

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These behind-the-scenes moves are just one way Macy’s is trying to win the shopping wars this holiday season. The company had previously revealed that it would be selling the Apple Watch in 180 of its stores, a bid to bring a sheen of Silicon Valley cool to the old-school department store format. And it will also try to make inroads with its “Backstage” brand, an off-price concept that is an answer to Nordstrom Rack. It will open “Backstage” shop-in-shops in some 45 of its department stores, in hopes it can appeal to a value-oriented customer and introduce the Macy’s Backstage name to more shoppers.

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Despite the green shoots, Macy’s still has some incredibly difficult challenges before it during the crucial holiday season. It has delivered a decline in comparable sales for seven straight quarters now, a sign of an ongoing struggle to connect with consumers. Traffic at Macy’s stores was down 6 percent in the most recent quarter, suggesting this problem persists. Meanwhile, players such as Amazon.com are delivering stiffer competition in the apparel business, and many shoppers that once frequented department stores are shifting their spending to off-price stores such as T.J. Maxx and Marshall’s.