Discount retailing giant Ross Stores is celebrating a bumper start to the fiscal year after seeing sales rise by more than 20 per cent.
The quarter ending May 2 brought home more than $6 billion in sales, a 21 per cent increase from the previous year, and $649 million in profit.
“We achieved outstanding sales and earnings results in the first quarter with superb execution throughout the business, especially the transition of our spring assortment,” Jim Conroy, CEO, said.
“Momentum was solid throughout the quarter, with broad-based strength across the business.”
Spanning 44 states, Ross Stores has 2283 locations in its portfolio. Customer traffic at these sites, Conroy said, was the “primary driver” of the company’s sales growth.
“We believe our results also benefited from higher consumer spending related to tax refunds,” he added.
While the tax refunds were a one-off, Neil Saunders, the MD of insights firm GlobalData, believes it will be used as a springboard for the rest of the financial year.
“Obviously, this dynamic will not repeat itself across the balance of the year, but it has helped Ross get off to a flying start,” Saunders said.
“Stores have also been a lot better at getting stock onto the floor and preventing gaps. Admittedly, the picture is still mixed across the fleet, but the improvement has been sufficient to drive better conversion and transaction values.
“And the more regular flow of newness is training shoppers to visit more often to check what’s new. All these things gave customers more opportunities to buy, and they seized them willingly.”
Going forward, Ross Stores has raised its guidance for the ongoing second quarter, now expecting comparable store sales to increase by 6 to 7 per cent.
