Department store chain Gottschalks Inc informed that same store sales for the month of March 2006 decreased 3.6 percent compared to the prior year.
Total sales for the month decreased 3.3 percent to $56.0 million from $57.9 million in March 2005. On a year-to-date basis, same store sales decreased 0.9 percent from the same period of the prior year.
Total sales for the year-to-date period were $100.3 million, essentially even with $100.7 million for the same period of fiscal 2005.
Jim Famalette, President and CEO of Gottschalks, said, "Our sales performance for the month primarily reflects the impact of the Easter holiday occurring three weeks later this year, moving from March to April. Our strongest categories continued to perform well in March with our best merchandise areas being shoes, cosmetics, house wares and furniture/mattresses.”
“We continue to emphasize inventory management and closed the month with our comp store inventory down 3.6 percent from the same period last year. Though we have not had typical spring weather on the West Coast this year, we believe our results for the combined March and April period will better reflect our expected spring sales," he said.
Gottschalks Inc is a regional department store chain, currently operating 63 department stores and 6 specialty apparel stores in six western states, including California (39), Washington (10), Alaska (6), Oregon (3), Nevada (2) and Idaho (3).
marketing@alchempro.com
