Gottschalks Inc announced that same store sales for the month of July 2006 decreased 0.7% from the prior year.
Total sales for the month decreased 0.5% to $43.3 million compared to total sales of $43.5 million in July 2005.
For the thirteen weeks ended July 29, 2005, same store sales increased 0.8% from the same period of fiscal 2005, and total sales increased 1.1% to $153.2 million compared to $151.6 million for the same period of fiscal 2004. For the year-to-date period, same store sales were flat, while total sales increased 0.3% to $296.8 million from $295.7 million for the same period last year.
Jim Famalette, President and CEO of Gottschalks, said, "The sales in our California stores were impacted by the record heat wave we experienced, while our Pacific Northwest stores had a solid sales gain during the month. We did see our California performance improve in the final weekend of the month as temperatures returned to more normalized levels. Our best performing merchandise categories during July were cosmetics, shoes, better sportswear and swimwear. Our inventory was down 3% at the end of the month on a comparable basis."
Gottschalks is a regional department store chain, currently operating 62 department stores and 6 specialty apparel stores in six western states, including California (39), Washington (9), Alaska (6), Oregon (3), Nevada (2) and Idaho (3). Gottschalks offers better to moderate brand-name fashion apparel, cosmetics, shoes, accessories and home merchandise.
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