Lower customer traffic affects Pier 1 September sales
07 Oct '05
2 min read
Texas based home furnishing maker Pier 1 Imports Inc reported that sales for the five-week period ended October 1, 2005 aggregated $162,166,000, a decline of 7.7 percent from $175,602,000 last year, and comparable store sales declined 10.6 percent. Year-to-date sales of $1,006,467,000 were down 5.0 percent from $1,059,900,000 last year, and comparable store sales declined 9.9 percent.
Marvin J. Girouard, Pier 1's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, commented, "September's comp store sales were in-line with their expectations. Customer traffic remained below last year for the month, average ticket sales were higher and conversion rates were slightly below the year-ago period.
'They are encouraged by the launch of their first national catalog and believe that their customers were pleased with the unique merchandise offerings shown in the catalog, including end-use visual presentations of new room ensembles. After customers received the fall catalog, they experienced improvements in store traffic and average ticket.
'As they mentioned in last month's investor call, they are discontinuing their annual October Friends and Family promotion that had been repeated for 10 years. Although this sale has a history of significantly increasing revenues in the month, it decreased merchandise margins and depleted their stores of the newest, most unique holiday items prior to the important November and December selling periods. With this change in their promotional events, comp store sales for October are estimated to decline in a range of 10 percent to 18 percent.
marketing@alchempro.com
