Carter’s has booked higher net income despite lower net sales in the second quarter.

The baby and toddler clothes retailer’s net income increased 15.8 per cent year over year to $27.6 million despite net sales falling 6 per cent to $564.4 million.

“In the second quarter, we saw a good response to our new summer product offerings, including our Americana-themed collections. Our best-selling products included our new Little Planet and PurelySoft collections with elevated styling and fabrications,” said Michael D Casey, chairman and CEO of Carter’s.

“Sales of our baby and toddler product offerings were comparable to last year; playwear sales were lower, which we believe reflects the slow start to Spring shopping earlier in the quarter.”

US retail net sales slid 10.3 per cent to $290.2 million while US wholesale net sales grew 3.2 per cent to $192.9 million. International net sales dipped 9.6 per cent to $81.3 million.

For the third quarter, the company forecasts net sales of $735 million to $755 million, down from $792 million in the year-ago period.

For the full fiscal year, Carter’s estimated net sales range from $2.79 billion to $2.83 billion, down from $2.95 billion last year.

To improve performance, the company intends to lower prices to drive traffic and increase investments in brand marketing to improve customer acquisition.

It also plans to continue store fleet optimization, including opening high-margin stores, closing low-margin stores, and converting stores to more productive formats.

Meanwhile, the company has recently appointed Allison Peterson as EVP of chief retail and digital officer and Raghu Sagi as EVP of chief information and technology officer.