Macy’s, the largest department store in the United States, saw slightly improved sales across all of its stores during the holiday season, but like other retailers it warned of a potentially rocky year ahead.

Macy’s said comparable sales at stores that it owns were down 1.1 percent in its fiscal fourth quarter, which ended Feb. 1. Across all of Macy’s nameplates, which include Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury, as well as its licensed business and online marketplace, sales rose 0.2 percent, the best result in many quarters.

Macy’s entered the holiday season facing tough challenges, including more cost-conscious consumers, weakening profitability and a bizarre accounting error. It is in the midst of a turnaround plan that includes closing underperforming locations and improving its remaining stores with more staffing and better merchandise. It has closed about 66 of 150 planned stores so far.

While Macy’s sees signs of optimism, the forecast it offered Wall Street showed that it expects to bring in less revenue than it did last fiscal year, in part because of the store closures. The retailer said it expects net sales to be $21 to $21.4 billion, down from the $22.3 billion this past year. It expects comparable sales to fall as much as 2 percent.

David Swartz, a senior equity analyst at Morningstar, cautioned that investors and analysts like himself “need to see more” in order to be convinced that the department store’s strategy to reverse its fortunes is really working.

“When you own hundreds of stores, some of them are going to be really good and some of them in the middle and some of them are terrible,” he said, adding that “the fact that the better stores are performing fairly well does not really tell you that much about the health of the whole company, unfortunately.”

But there are factors Macy’s and other retailers must navigate in the year ahead that are outside of their control.

Tariffs recently imposed by President Trump have loomed over retailers as they report their latest financials. Those tariffs, which took effect on Tuesday, place a 25 percent levy on most Mexican and Canadian imports to the United States and an additional 10 percent on Chinese goods.

Target noted on Tuesday that tariffs were a factor that could prompt customers to hold back on spending. Corie Barry, the chief executive of Best Buy, said that price increases for American consumers were “highly likely” as they expect vendors to “pass along some level of tariff costs to retailers.”

Despite warning of the challenges that tariffs could bring, including additional costs, some retailers have tried to put a brave face on it, noting they had already been working to reduce their possible exposure to tariffs.

Steve Miller, the chief financial executive for Warby Parker, said on Feb. 27 that the company had diversified its suppliers over the last five years in order to reduce tariff exposure, noting that China represents 20 percent of its costs of goods.

“We have multiple levers in place to manage a dynamic tariff environment,” he said.

TJX, the owner of TJ Maxx and Marshalls, noted on Feb. 26 that it expects a “small negative impact” from tariffs in the first half of the year, but John Klinger, the retailer’s chief financial executive, said the company remains “confident we can navigate our way through the current China tariff environment on our future buys.”

Some brands have also acknowledged the uncertainty created by Mr. Trump’s tariffs, which can dampen business activity.

John M. Vandemore, the chief financial officer of Sketchers, joked with investors on Tuesday that “between when I left my hotel room and I came down, I had to check and make sure there were no new tariffs” before taking their questions. Still, he noted that the footwear company had a “pretty solid path” to absorbing the costs.

Mr. Swartz, the Morningstar analyst, said that while retailers are concerned about tariffs, it’s not necessarily a new threat.

“Some of the tariffs on China were never removed when Biden was president,” he said, giving companies time to adapt.

If investors believed the latest round of tariffs were the start of a severe trade war that will last for years, “you’d see stocks getting crushed all over the place,” he said.

Ultimately, he added, “it doesn’t make any sense” for Mr. Trump “to actually cause a recession which would make people very angry with him.”