Table of Contents
NEW YORK — With Labor Day falling on the latest possible date, September 7, back-to-school shopping stretched into September and suppressed August retail sales.
With Labor Day falling on the latest possible date, September 7, back-to-school shopping stretched into September and suppressed August retail sales.
Costco Wholesale Corp. reported net sales for the four weeks ended August 30 fell 1% to $8.7 billion. The Issaquah, Wash.-based company attributed the decline to the calendar shift of the Labor Day holiday in the United States and Canada by one week and the Chuseok holiday in South Korea by two weeks.
Costco said its U.S. comparable-store sales rose 5% in August. International store comps were up 7%, for an overall increase of 5%.
For its fiscal fourth quarter, also ended August 30, Costco said total sales hit $113.7 billion, up from $110.2 billion the preceding year.
Comparable-store sales, excluding gasoline and foreign exchange, rose 6% in both U.S. and international stores, and were up 7% on a full-year basis in both segments. Costco is one of the nation’s largest sellers of gasoline. The retailer plans to add pumps as a means of driving growth in membership and store traffic.
Rite Aid Corp. posted sales of $2.5 billion in the five weeks ended August 29, an increase of 1.6% from a year earlier.
August same-store sales also were up 1.6% year on year, the company noted, while front-end same-store sales increased 0.6%. Pharmacy same-store sales, which included an approximate 222 basis points negative impact from introductions of new generic drugs, increased 2.1%. Prescription count at comparable stores declined 0.3%.
At Fred’s Inc., August sales increased 12% to nearly $166 million. Comparable-store sales rose 1.2%. "We expect to see a stronger total and comparable-store sales performance in September versus the same month last year, as our merchandising and marketing programs continue to gain momentum, we expand our pharmacy department marketing and as specialty pharmacy grows," remarked Fred’s chief executive officer Jerry Shore.
