AnnTaylor Stores Corporation announced its sales results for the month of November 2007.
For the four-week period ended December 1, 2007, net sales increased 12.2% to $209.2 million, compared with net sales of $186.4 million for the four-week period ended November 25, 2006. By division, net sales for Ann Taylor increased 1.4% to $74.3 million in November 2007, compared with net sales of $73.3 million in November 2006. For Ann Taylor LOFT, net sales increased 15.5% to $99.6 million in November 2007, compared with net sales of $86.2 million in November 2006.
Comparable store sales for the November 2007 period increased 3.9%, versus a comparable store sales decline of 4.3% in the November 2006 period. By division, comparable store sales for Ann Taylor increased 0.6% in the 2007 period, compared with a decrease of 3.4% the prior year.
For Ann Taylor LOFT, comparable store sales increased 5.3% in November 2007, compared with a decrease of 7.7% the prior year. As disclosed last month, comparable store sales in the month of November benefited from timing associated with a promotional program that began in October, resulting in a November benefit of 1.2 points to total Company comps and 3.0 points to Ann Taylor division comps.
Commenting on the Company's overall sales results, Ann Taylor President & Chief Executive Officer Kay Krill stated, "From a sales and margin perspective, November was a solid month overall for us. Our trends in the first half of the month were better than in the back half, due to traffic weakness as the month progressed.
The Ann Taylor division experienced very soft traffic in the second half of the month, although we achieved good in-store metrics. At LOFT, traffic in the back half was also soft, but the division effectively offset this softness with very strong in-store performance. Importantly, we are entering December with healthy inventory positions at both divisions and with product assortments that we believe are better than last year."
AnnTaylor Stores Corporation
marketing@alchempro.com
