NEW YORK-The back-to-school season ended last month with the major U.S. retailers tracked by HFN posting mostly modest increases in same-store sales.

Leading the way was The TJX Cos. with a same-store sales increase of 6 percent, followed by Ross Stores and Costco, each with 5 percent increases. Macy’s chimed in with an increase of 2.5 percent, and Target’s comp-store increase finished the month at 2.1 percent. Kohl’s was the only downer among the retailers with a decline of 2.7 percent.

Carol Meyrowitz, CEO of TJX, said the company’s 6 percent gain was well above its expectations, and was driven by customer traffic in all of the company’s divisions, in particular TJX Europe, which posted a 13 percent gain.

Terry Lundgren, chairman, president and CEO of Macy’s, said the company’s August-September period gave results “consistent with our positive year-to-date trend. We continue to feel good about the remainder of our fall season as we begin to ramp up receipts of fresh inventory for the cooler weather ahead.”