BJ's reports strong sales
Retail warehouse club BJ's Wholesale Club Inc. said today its same-store sales, or sales at stores open at least a year, rose 5.5 percent in March, beating Wall Street's expectations.
Same-store sales are an important measure of retail business performance because they track growth at existing stores, not newly opened ones.
BJ's said gas sales added about 2.1 percent to same-store sales, and the absence of pharmacy sales deducted 0.4 percent. The company closed its in-store pharmacies in February.
The earlier Easter holiday added about 1.5 percent to 2 percent to same-store sales.
Total sales rose 10 percent to $790.8 million from $718.7 million in March 2006.
All regions showed sales gains, with the strongest gains in upstate New York and Mid Atlantic and the smallest gain in the Southeast, the company said.
Dairy, deli, paper products, produce, soda, water and televisions sold well, while DVDs, jewelry, lawn care, residential furniture and toys performed worse than last year.
BJ's expects April same store sales to be flat to up 2 percent. The Easter calendar shift will hurt the month's sales by about 2 percent. (AP)
